SCEA Part 1: Passed 89%

[Sudhansu Pati]

I would like to say "Thank You" to all the contributers to this group. The contributions helped a lot for a better preparation. I took the test this morning and passed with 89% score. I have been touching J2EE, UML, Patterns etc. technologies since last 5 years. So it was a good refresh for me. I studied 2 weekends, but my previous knowledge was very helpful.

Here are my recommendations for preparation
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Books : UML Distilled, Study Guide (Mark Cade, Simon Roberts), Design Patterns (GOF)

Study Notes : Pete Morgans Note http://www.sarahandpete.com/work/SCEAexamnotes.pdf

I wouldn't recommend to read too many notes, some of the notes in scea_prep are buggy, clumsy and probably outside of the scope of the test.

Mock Test : Do the mock tests again and again until you score 90% or more. Don't take the mock tests without preparation.

http://www.javacoding.net/certification/mocks/

http://www.javaqueries.com/

[user id : guest, Password: test]

I would highly discourage to find a shortcut to pass the test. That is probably not very helpful. It would take some time to understand the indepth behavior of EJB container, Security, Patterns etc., but it is worth it.

[Vaithiya Sundaram]

Congratulations Sudhansu!!!

I am already having J2EE work experience and SCBCD certificate and I am planning to prepare this exam using the following books,

Study Guide (Mark Cade, Simon Roberts)
UML Distilled
Head First Design Patterns
Head First EJB
JMS Tutorial(from sun)

and some online articles/white papers for other subjects - security,protocols,etc.

Is that would be enough?
mainly I need to know what materials would be good for Security,protocols,
common architecture and legacy connectivity? and how many questions comes from these subjects.

Thanks in advance
Vaithiya

[Sudhansu Pati]

Hi Vaithiya,

Head First EJB is an excellent book and covers a lot about transactions,pooling,remote proxy etc. That book should cover most of the EJB questions. You probably don't need the JMS Tutorial from Sun. I looked at it and it was 278 pages. You need basic understanding on why and how messaging is relevant in the architecture.

I scored the lowest in Security (50%). I studied Pete Morgan's note and the Study Guide. Make sure to read about Applet Security. You may get atleast 2 questions. There may be about 6 questions on Seciruty. I probably got about 5 questions from Common Architecture. May be 3-4 questions on protocol and 5 questions on Legacy Connectivity. I am not familiar with the "Head First Design Patterns" book. I followed the "Design Patterns" by GOF. I personally didn't like GOF book the first time I read. It was difficult to understand and the pictures weren't very clear (for example : didn't specify the interfaces and abstract classes).

But you can't answer the questions just by knowing what the patterns do. You must know the applicability. For Example Container's use of stateless session bean is a "flyweight" pattern. Remote Interface is a Proxy pattern. I would recommend to do the mock tests to get some idea on how the patterns are used.

[Ramon Gill]

Another good source is Sun's 'Blueprints'.

Ray

[Vaithiya Sundaram]

Hi Sudhansu, Ramon

Thanks for your suggestions!!!
I will follow up the materials referred by you.

Vaithiya