Question is so simple but time consuming

[Anwar Hossain]

Hello guys,
I took the exam yesterday but time is really less though we'r new in EJB 2.0 specification. E'vry questions came from the specifications which provided by cathe. yeah.. those who r really worked in the field of Enterprise computing they will able to answer all the questions nicely.
Those who r going to sit for the exam pls follow the specification and try to learn all the methods of EJB2.0 incl. method signature and each and ev'ry exceptions. Most important topics are CMT,Life cycle of Ev'ry bean,Tranction, EJB QL,Security, Stateless and statefull session bean ,Entity bean , CMP, BMP, all the methods like,sessionContex,ejbCreate(),passivate(),activate(),remove() and others. Know well all the exceptions. try to learn by heart.
All the best those who will take exam from now on.
Once again thanks kathe for her last minute.
Regards,
Md. Anwar Hossain
SCJP, MCP

[Valentin Crettaz]

try to learn by heart.
General comment (not especially directed at you, anwar )
Learning by heart doesn't prove anything. You should really try to understand the matter and not learn it by heart.
Personally I think it is a shame to succeed in getting a certification by means of by-heart-learning. If you think you will not get certified without learning by heart, it just means that you are not ready and that you should try to spend a little more time learning.
Don't learn by heart but do learn by practicing and coding a lot. This is the only way to get the maximum out of a certification.
Just my two cents...

[Ashish Sarin]

I agree with u Valentin. Learning by heart may give someone a PASS in a certification but it will not add value in one's understanding of the subject. The certification should always be considered as a means of learning/improving ur skills.
regards
ashish sarin
scjp2,scjd2,scwcd,scea(part i),ibm certified developer - xml & related technologies

[Anwar Hossain]

Ashish and Sherin,
I'm really agree with both of you but one thing you will agree with me that If you don't learn by heart ie. memorise as well as understand first then you r gonna forget ev'thing. Well.. If u wanna pass the other exam like SCJP or others then u have to memorise som'thing but for EJB u can't. Anyway thanks...
Anwar Hossain
SCJP2,MCP

[Anwar Hossain]

Ashish and Valentin,
I'm really agree with both of you but one thing you will agree with me that If you don't learn by heart ie. memorise as well as understand first then you r gonna forget ev'thing. Well.. If u wanna pass the other exam like SCJP or others then u have to memorise som'thing but for EJB u can't. Anyway thanks...
Anwar Hossain
SCJP2,MCP

[Luciano Queiroz]

In my opinion, for this exam you really have to learn many things by heart.
Take a look at the deployment descriptor of a EJB? How can you memorize all the tags, what each one do, etc? Of course I'll will learn by heart!
I agree that we must understand how things happen, this is the most important! You must understand the concepts and the ideas. But there's no way for you to test and practice all the details that surround EJB. Details are details, some of them must be learnt by heart.
After the exam, it's unavoidable that we'll forget many details. But the EJB specification exists to supply us these details.
A certification doesn't mean you are a master, an expert in that specific area of knowledge. A certification proves that you had the enough basis. That you are a guy with initiative to study and learn things by yourself.

[Al Newman]

General comment (not especially directed at you, anwar ) Learning by heart doesn't prove anything. You should really try to understand the matter and not learn it by heart.

Valentine, I agree as a matter of general principal. I understood Java well before ever starting on the certification road. Even so I found that I had to commit much to memory which I had previously left to books. Even so, one cannot pass the SCJP by rote memorization, because too many of the questions are about how different parts of the language interact with each other.
The SCWCD was different in that I'm convinced that it is possible to pass it by dint of rote memorization. And indeed necessary to do a fair amount of memorization unless one possesses an unusualy catholic background in the subject matter. How many people write tag libraries as a normal thing, for example?
I think the SCBCD may be similar. Many of us regularly write EJB code and deployment descriptiors without having memorized the deployment descriptors, the formal project roles which Sun has outlined, and which API's and versions thereof are guaranteed to be present in an EJB 2.0 container. We tend to be familiar with the practical details of what Weblogic or Websphere actually support rather than what the spec guarantees.
So preparation to pass one of these exams will necessarily involve both the expansion of the borders of our understanding AND a good deal of rote memory work! Or so I have found it. I need to facts right to mind and there are no references available in the testing center. QED, I memorize!

[Ashik Uzzaman]

Wait a minute. I often use a term learn by heart not to mention learn by memorization but to emphasize to provide the best of yours to get succes. But I feel now that actually this is a miswording by me that I have to change after seeing this discussion.
Just to add, I am against memorization in any case.
Thanks anyway.

[Kathy Sierra]

Howdy -- y'all made great comments here. Yes, you really do need BOTH understanding and rote-memorization for this exam. The rote-memorization part means you don't have to think twice about something, or stop and look it up, and you're less likely to make a mistake. You just KNOW it. While the understanding is so that you can make, assemble, and deploy components that actually do what they are supposed to, and do it in the most efficient and effective way. Memorizing and understanding the spec also helps you know when you are building or deploying a component / application that is NOT within the spec.
(which you are tested on)
Sun wants to be sure that you always know when you are relying on something that is only part of one vendor's server, because relying on that may force you to stay with that vendor, or make major changes to your application in order to switch to a different server. Of course, it is not uncommon to take advantage of a vendor-specific enhancement, but Sun wants to make sure that you KNOW when you are doing that, and making a conscious choice.
I think people do have different uses of the term "learn by heart". To some people, it means pure memorization. You either know the tag or you don't. But to some (me included), we use it to mean that "you really know it and get it at a deep level". In other words, learning from the 'heart' as opposed to just the 'head'.
But however you describe it, this exam does require you to do both -- memorize and understand. Some folks complain about the memorization part, but if you look carefully at those questions, they are NOT testing to see if you know whether a method is called fooBar() vs. foobar(). We hate that kind of testing as well. When we put in questions that might *appear* to be for pure memorization of a method, they were almost always trying to see if you understood the implications. We want to know, for example, that you understand the implications of calling remove(), and that you can recognize which interface holds which version(s) of the method. We want to know that you understand which things can be called on your context, and which are called on other interfaces, because these are essential to knowing how the pieces really work, and how the lifecycle of a bean works. If we went too far on a few of these, they will probably be removed during the beta.
(and remember, if you take the beta and a question is removed, that same question will not count on your beta test score )
cheers and good luck
congratulations to those who have already survived the beta! That is a long, grueling, experience.
-Kathy

[Gustavo Torreti]

Good Morning, everyone!
This is a nice and important thing to think about...

Originally posted by Kathy Sierra:
Howdy -- y'all made great comments here. Yes, you really do need BOTH understanding and rote-memorization for this exam. The rote-memorization part means you don't have to think twice about something, or stop and look it up, and you're less likely to make a mistake. You just KNOW it.

This sort of a 'brain's muscular memory' the repetition of an activity helps you go beyond understanding something... "you just know it".
Memorisation alone will make you an ejb2.0 Parrot, just like leaning Karate by books and no exercises. Living, playing with it will help you walk the path instead of knowing it.

Sun wants to be sure that you always know when you are relying on something that is only part of one vendor's server, because relying on that may force you to stay with that vendor, or make major changes to your application in order to switch to a different server. Of course, it is not uncommon to take advantage of a vendor-specific enhancement, but Sun wants to make sure that you KNOW when you are doing that, and making a conscious choice.

imho, that can only be achieved if you walk the path... this is a practice-based situation. Readind, memorisation can be helpful, but are only maps and references during a trip.

I think people do have different uses of the term "learn by heart". To some people, it means pure memorization. You either know the tag or you don't. But to some (me included), we use it to mean that "you really know it and get it at a deep level". In other words, learning from the 'heart' as opposed to just the 'head'.

This is a rather interesting new term for me...

Some folks complain about the memorization part, but if you look carefully at those questions, they are NOT testing to see if you know whether a method is called fooBar() vs. foobar().

That was such a nice addition to tests. I expect to b tested weather I know how to use something or not. Nor testers nor tested should waste their times on spelling check. There are better ways of discovering if you achieve an 'inside-out' understanding of whatever your are doing.
Some methods can be used only at some specific places and situations, so testing that is cheacking for learned points - instead of just a raw memorisation check.

congratulations to those who have already survived the beta! That is a long, grueling, experience.
-Kathy

Attitudes defines our altitudes. Though experience, but still one worth takin' !!
Regardz to all,
Gus

[Anwar Hossain]

Thanks Cathe and Gustavo Torreti for their valuable comments.
regards,
Md. Anwar hossain
SCJP2, MCP