Passed Part I with 95%

[ashutosh shinde]

Hello Ranchers,

I passed part I of the exam yesterday with 95%. I am happy with the score given that I studied for a month and that too intermittently although I have been working as an Architect for a couple of years now.

I used Paul Allens book, but thought the book was not very well structured and hence I used the book only to get a high level understanding of the areas involved in the exam.

I used the following books for the preparation -
1. UML Distilled - Martin Fowler (this one is a gem)
2. GoF Design Patterns ( i found the samples in C++ a bit difficult to understand)
3. Head First Design Patterns - (to understand the implementation in Java and cover for the understanding problems I had with the GoF book)
4. Mastering EJB - Ed Romans

These are some of the links that I found helpful apart from the ones in the LINKS section of the forum-
Load Balancing -
http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2001/09/26/load.html

Firewalls -
http://www.vicomsoft.com/knowledge/reference/firewalls1.html

In hindsight, I think the Whizlabs Mock Tests were very helpful in understanding the format and quantifying ones preparedness for the exam. It was worth the investment. I remember having asked a question on the difficulty level of the actual exam with the Whizlabs exams (for which i never received a satisfactory answer), but having gone through the actual exam I can say that the real exam is much simpler than the Whizlabs suite. I used to score around 80's in the Whizlabs.

Contrary to some of the posts I had more than enough time to complete the test. I completed the test and the review with 30 minutes to spare.

Many thanks to the Java Ranchers for creating a wealth of information on this site.

I have a couple of question on how to proceed further -
1. I am not able to log on to the sun site (www.certmanager.net/sun) to view the exam report. It says that the "We could not find a user meeting the specified criteria". However, I could see the report on the Prometric site. Any ideas on what could be the problem?
2. Can anyone provide pointers on how to procure the assignment in Pune/Mumbai region in India? I have been trying to get this information from the Prometric centers here but the information that has come by hasnt been very encouraging.

Many thanks,
Ashutosh

[Deepak Bala]

Congrats !

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think it takes a while for the sun cert site to recognize you. Try again later, may be after a week or so.

Were there any mock exam questions on the Paul and Joseph book and were they any good ?

[Rizwan Mohammad]

Hey, Congrats. Thanks for sharing your experiences. That helps.

[Xiao Di]

That is a very cool score.

[ashutosh shinde]

Hi John,

The CD that comes along with the book has a mock test. I thought it was a pretty decent test, comparable to the test quality of whizlabs.

-- Ashutosh

[Pradeep Chopra]

Congratulations Ashutosh. Wonderful score and valuable feedback!

I am glad Whizlabs preparation kit played a role in your success. We've intentionally made our exams difficult than the actual exam so as to ensure our users' success.

If you have any other feedback, please send us at [e-mail].

Best wishes,
Pradeep Chopra