Passed SCBCD with 97%

[B.Sathish]

Just back from the exam center. A little disappointed to have missed a hundred, but pretty satisfied . Here are some tips to score high on the exam

1. Though most of the questions were straight forward, I though the EJB-QL questions were quite involved, if not hard. Most of the QL questions were drag and drop ones. You'll have to frame the query yourself for scenarios which are not that simple, I would say. You have to choose the right buttons from about 50 drag and drop buttons. I was frightened a bit at first sight, but recovered in time . My advice is that it's better to practise writing queries for different scenarios yourself. Any amount of theory reading that you do on QL probably won't help much. You'll find it much easier if you have practised writing queries with pen and paper.

2. Some other drag and drop questions related to tranactions were also not that straight forward - a little bit involved, I would say. Take your maximum time for the drag and drop questions and be careful because you have to reanswer the whole question if you wish to change it after you have answered it once. I also think these drag and drops carry a bit more weightage than the other questions leading to odd numbers in the final score

3. Rest of the questions were pretty simple and straightforward. But there was one question on CMR that I felt was darn tricky. Got it right after putting a lot of thought.

4. You'll have plenty of time, revisit all the questions once. This helps boost your score as I mostly correct atleast 2 answers on second review

5. Reg preparation - I read only the HFEJB book and nothing else. The only mock I took was the one at the end of HFEJB, had got 89% in that. I didn't read any other book or the specification. Head First covers everything you need to get 100% on this exam. But the mock-exam in the Head First is quite tougher than the real exam and many options are very ambiguous (in typical Head First style ), but atleast it's not as ambiguous as the one at the end of Head First JSP and Servlets

6. For those of you who are interested in this comparison, in my opinion, the BCD is definitely more challenging than the WCD though you might have to read and remember more for the WCD

7. Got a question for the authors Kathy and Bert - Do you have any plans to write a Head First book for Web Services? badly need one

Please feel free to ask if you want to know anything else. I'll be glad to help.

Thanks,
Sathish

SCJP 1.4 - 96%
SCWCD 1.4 - 98%
SCBCD 1.3 - 97%

[Rr Kumaran]

Hi Satish,

Good Job !

Since you might be well remembering EJB concepts and I am novice to EJB, I have one basic question. Say I have 2 ejb methods, 'buy' and 'sell' and when I invoke the 2 operations on the same bean, how does the second call (sell method) is actually REALIZED on the same ejb bean instance ? Whenever we make any ejb method calls on the same bean instance then how actually are remote references are linked to the actual ejb bean instance ?Does remote references use some kind of serial version uid's or something of similiar sort for identifying the ejb bean instance they are linked to ?

Please clarify ? Hope I am not vague in my question


Thanks in advance.

[Pranav Shukla]

Congrats, Sathish !

Great shot

I always knew you would get a score like this one from the questions and answers you posted.

I too agree with Sathish about the EJB-QL questions.

[Radhika Jonnalagadda]

Hey Satish,
Many Congratulations.
I have a quick question for you.I have no knowledge of EJBs. I just placed an order for HF-EJB.Can you suggest me any good book for beginners or do you say that HF-EJB is THE BEST to start with?Please reply and thank you for the same.

[Bert Bates]

Congrats B Sathish!

That's a great score. If you have any specifics about where we have been too ambiguous on our books we'd appreciate the feedback!

As far as web services is concerned - so far we're staying away from it It seems like kind of a mess of specifications right now, and we're waiting to see what sorts out.

- Bert

[Rizwan Mohammad]

Congrats Satish.
I wish, I can get score like you.
I have been reading your questions & answers in this forum. I thought you get good score, the way you analize..I was following you even on SCWCD.
Great job. Celebrate your success!
I request you to be in touch with this SCBCD forum to help us, who are planning to write scbcd in near future..
Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences in this forum.

[Gannarapu Rajesh]

Congrats Sathish,


Cheers
Rajesh
SCJP 1.4

[Amr El-Nasser]

Congratulation..Great score!!

[Hong Anderson]

Congrats
I interest Head First Java Web Services too.

[Ramakrishnan Viswanathan]

Congratulations! Great shot!

[B.Sathish]

Thanks all for ur wishes

Kumaran,
To answer your question, how 2 calls land on the same bean instance, that would depend on the bean type. If it is a stateful session bean, when the client calls create on the home interface, the EJB container assigns the client a dedicated EJBObject instance and a dedicated bean instance. The client gets the EJBObject stub (component interface reference). The stub has the "smarts" to communicate with the same EJBObject every time the client makes a call. The EJBObject has the "smarts" to communicate with the same bean instance for every call that comes from that client. Or you could say that it's the container's responsibility to route the call to the same bean instance. How exactly the container implements these things - we don't know. The container might not even use a dedicated EJBObject, we don't know. But as an EJB developer, the specification asks us to write code assuming that this is how it works, the actual implementation is container dependant and would vary from vendor to vendor (say weblogic, Websphere, JBOSS etc). Hope I have amswered your question.


Radhika,
I feel that Head First EJB is good enough for everybody, particularly for beginners. When I started with, I did not know much about EJB's. The authors have done a lot of research on meta-cognition and their effort has paid off - the content really sticks to your brain . That's the case with all Head First books. The only problem is it'll be tough going back to normal books after reading Head First books.


hey Bert, I meant to say that some of the options in your mock-exam questions are not very clear. It's a general comment that applies to both the Head First JSP and Servlets and HFEJB books. It's ok if the mock-exam is tough, but atleast the options should be clear in the context of the question. Also some mock-exam questions have been misplaced. They should be coming at the end of some other chapter. I don't remember a specific example to site now. These mistakes could have been due to your tight deadlines to complete the book, I understand, you and Kathy have done an outstanding job with your Head First teaching principles.

Thanks,
Sathish

[B.Sathish]

Forgot to mention, I wanted to thank particuarly Peer Reynders and Ramakrishnan Viswanathan for answering most of my questions and clarifying my doubts. I didn't need to refer to the specification because of them . Peer has an incredibly deep knowledge of the EJB concepts. This forum is lucky to have him

[Radhika Jonnalagadda]

Hey Sathish,
Thank you very much.I am indeed waiting for the book from amazon.Am very much eager to join the list of SCBCD PASSED-OUTS.

[sanneel paul]

Hi
Heartly Congrates !!!

Sanneel

[Purav Gandhi]

Hi,

Congrats Dear and keep helping ppl like us who are still trying to achieve it.
I have just started preparation and planning to give exams in Jan.

[Chandra Atla]

Congratulations on your grand success in the exam!!!

Cheers,
Chandra

[Aneesh Kumar]

Congrats dude ..
I am just about to start preparation and you are giving me good inspiration.

So what is your next step ??

Thanks
Aneesh

[Nizar Hussein]

Congratulations, great score

[Devender Thareja]

Congratulations!! Hope you will remain around to help us.

[S.L.Narayanan]

Congratulations!!!

Well Done!!!