Need help to clear SCBCD

[Anna Madhusudhanan Natanagopalan]

Hi ,
This is Anna Madhusudhanan. I cleared the SCJP2(september 2000). That is old syllabus.
Now i want to clear SCBCD, for that.
To clear the SCBCD i bought HFE. already i have Mastering EJB from ed-roman. I have more than one and half yrs exp in ejb. I studied 3 times ed-roman. but i am not clear in the desing patterns (core as well as ejb).
To clear the SCBCD , do i need to refresh the all core techniques and desing patterns also.
Minimum how many hours(total), does it take to prepare the SCBCD exam.
Please give me some tips and hints to clear the SCBCD.

Thanks and regards
Anna Madhusudhanan

[Mike Cogan]

Just focus on the topics covered by Head First EJB. The book covers all the topics you will need to know to pass the exam.
The areas I would recommend focusing on in Mastering EJB would be EJB-QL, deployment descriptors and security. There are no design pattern questions in the SCBCD exam.
If you have used EJB technology before (and this does mean a lot of CMP Entity beans as well) I think you could revise and pass the exam in about a month and a half.