Sharing my Experience SCEA Part II and III

[Rafael Fernandes]

My thoughts for Part II:
The biggest advice that I can give you is that you should design the assignment as an architect.
don't put much details on your diagrams however, write down all your decisions.

For example for each diagram (class and component) I wrote a my decisions.
Some questions that you could answer in your comments:
Which patterns are you using here? why this pattern? is it scale? why this persistence mechanism?

One more thing, sequence diagrams are about 10% of the whole exam so don't spend much time on it.
Start creating a consistent class diagram (extending your business model) and then your component diagram (how your classes interact themselves).

My thoughts for Part III:
It is by far easy, you just need to know what you've designed.
The decisions that you've wrote down on part II will help you a lot.
Before take the exam just print out your assignment as well as your design document, read it a few times and that's it...

Websites that helped me a lot:
https://coderanch.com/forums/f-26/java-Architect-SCEA
http://iamin.blogdriver.com/iamin/208073.html
http://www.google.com ))

[Phil Haigh]

I concur with Rafael. I recently passed parts II and III (81%) and the best thing you can do is treat it as the real thing. There are no trick questions, just take the information you are given and go through the architecture and design process.

In addition to documenting your decisions, you should also document your assumptions and as your understanding of the assignment improves, go back and check/refine them. This is important too, because your decisions are based on (a) the information given and (b) your assumptions where the information is lacking.

I had to revise/drop assumptions as my understanding of the assignment improved. It is easy to miss, or mis-read, bits of the assignment.

Good luck!
Phil.