Got results for Part 2 & 3

[Bagwan Mehrat]

I posted earlier that Sun was late with my results. Fortunately, they weren't terribly late. I got my results today, finally:
Grade: P
Score: 84
The maximum number of points you could have received is 100, minimum to pass is 70.
Class Diagram (40 maximum) ... 31
Component Diagram (40 maximum) ... 35
Sequence/Collaboration Diagrams (12 maximum) ... 18
I think the "12" maximum is an obviously a typo.
I did what I felt was the absolute minimum necessary to pass the assignment. I passed up many opportunities to improve my diagrams in favor of expediency, and because I was pretty sure that my bare bones approach was "good enough" to pass. Apparently, this gamble worked out fine.
I took Part I on 01/30/2002, Part II was submitted on 02/10/2002, and Part III was taken on 02/13/2002. I received my result today on 03/15/2002.
On an unrelated note, I got bored waiting for my SCEA result, so I studied for and got the OCA, the Oracle 9i Certified Associate. Obviously, that was much less involved than the SCEA to get, though that too is not to be underestimated, as I've found.
Now I must ponder what certification to go for next. In the meantime, I'll just keep reading JavaRanch, even though there's no real reason to anymore.

[SJ Adnams]

Hi Bagwan,
With the risk of getting this thread moved to the Oracle forum, can I ask how you found the 9i exams?
I failed the 8i Arch & Admin exam for a second time and am now thinking of switching to the 9i track.
Simon

[Ian B Anderson]

Congratulations!
Ian

[Bagwan Mehrat]

Thanks!
(begin 777 ob-SCEA)
In the Class Diagram, I didn't show much diversity or imagination, which is probably why it was the lowest scoring. It was just basically a rearranged version of the business model with a few more things like user and credit card tacked on.
I made 5 Sequence Diagrams. I didn't really understand how the lifeline box things in UML really worked, so I arranged them any which way. I thought they looked relatively simple, in terms of the number of objects across and the number of arrows going down (if anyone's interested, I can dig up my assignment and get my average number for these).
The Component Diagram I made was a mess. I could only look in puzzlement at what I had drawn. Since I couldn't figure it out, I figured it was too hard to fix, so I just submitted it as it was.
I used Visio 2002 for all the diagrams.
(Please forgive some off topic stuff that follows)
Simon, regarding the Oracle exams, I'm very impressed that you are continuing to work on your certification even after failing twice! For this discussion, I'm assuming we're talking about the DBA track. The two exams I took were quite challenging. I used the Oracle Press OCP books for the corresponding exams to study. For Exam 1, Introduction to Oracle9i SQL, I read through the book rapidly twice before taking the exam. I also downloaded Oracle 9i Enterprise Edition from Oracle, a 1.2 gigabyte download over a 56k modem connection. During the exam, which is unproctored, I had the reference book and SQL*Plus running and ready to verify simple syntax questions [my lawyer's interpretation of Oracle's rules that you were permitted to have "reference materials" of your choice for this exam. ] I passed with a grade that was not outstanding, but which gave a comfortable margin.
I sensed that Exam 2, Oracle 9i Fundamentals I would be more challenging, so I prepared more carefully, actually reading the exam book carefully - twice, and doing two of the three practice exams in the back. I got about 80% on those. I thought I was quite ready. But when I took the actual exam, I was stunned by the questions, which asked you to do things like choose 3 out of 5 answers, or 4 out of 7, or 2 out of 4, and everything in between, and it was a mess. I barely passed. Nevertheless, so far, the Oracle Press OCP books have been excellent study materials, and I used them exclusively to study.
It doesn't seem to be possible yet to get the OCP 9i DBA certification directly yet, because Oracle still hasn't released Exam 4.

[Chetan Mehta]

HI,
can you tell me any sample application describing problem and possible solution that we can study for exams.
Thanks,
Chetan Mehta
[e-mail]

[Mark Spritzler]

Congrats Bagwan
Mark

[Bagwan Mehrat]

Hello, Chetan.
I didn't really use any sample applications as a reference. I personally found it easiest to just think about the problem that was given to me by Sun, and not about anyone else's problems.
I'm sure that one could learn a lot by looking at actual J2EE case studies, but for something this specific, doesn't it seem that looking at what others have done is more of a distraction than a help?

[JiaPei Jen]

Congratulations!!
Which books do you think are useful for the 2nd Part of the SCEA assignment?

[Bagwan Mehrat]

Since the assignment was about UML, and UML for J2EE in particular, I found the diagrams in books like "Developing Enterprise Java Applications with J2EE and UML" and "UML Distilled" to be very helpful.
I didn't read either book in much depth. I mostly liked looking at the pictures to get an idea of how diagrams were drawn. Hmmm, sometimes I sound a bit lazy, even to myself.