Passed (81%) & My Notes

[Ashik Uzzaman]

Hi Pals,
Passed the exam with 81%. Have a lot to talk to you. Starting sequentially so that you can have an idea how you may proceed....
Preparation For The Exam
Completed my MSS, Economics from Dhaka University last year and 2-year's diploma from NIIT 1 year earlier. Passed my SCJP exam (91%) at 27th August which i prepared for a lot.
I had no prior experience in working with Java in a commercial environment (but have been working as a trainer in an IT training institute for one-and-half years). Found very difficult to study alone servlets/jsp and took 3 weeks to successfully install Tomcat 4. I started studying for the exam from 1st November 2001, so took 3 months to appear with average study of 4/5 hours a day. Could run my first servlet at that time without a knowledge of the difference between Servlets & JSP. Those who face problem Installing Tomcat 4 can see my post here...
First selected the books & materials to study from the discussions of this forum. Now i would say you to summarize as to read....
(1) Core Servlets & JSP (very good)
(2) Java Servlet Programming by O'Reilly (Jason Hunter) (excellent but as i got only first edition, it was too deprecated...yet waiting 4 the 2nd edition)
(3) Java Server Pages O'Reilly (average+)
When reading them i started coding to test most of the methods referred in Miftah Khan's Notes (very good, really) and prepared my notes as my own reference and now uploaded that 2 days earlier for you guys.... ...I always tried to share my experrience with you. Follow the link below for my short note on SCWCD exam :
http://www20.brinkster.com/ashik75
You should also go through the Ken Zrobok's Note which is approximately a complete tutorial for the exam. I did not get time to go thru more than once Michell's notes & Velmurugans Notes and only gone thru servlet specification twice (useful) and jsp specification once (not so good ). I crammed very few points for the exams. But i advice you do study the deployment descriptor & servlet api (methods, return types, parameters) very well.
Mock Exams
The last one week i was busy with the mocks and analyzing them and found i was following many deprecated methods & tags earlier... . Both SCWCD@Whiz & JWeb+ were good. But they have weeknesses too.
(1) SCWCD@Whiz has an excellent feature Quiz that's realy interesting & useful.
(2) SCWCD@Whiz's tips on exam is also good.
(3) But the 4 exams are easier than real SCWCD exam.
I scored 70% in diagnostics, 81.3% in test1, 69.5% in test2 and 91.53% in the final test (just 2 hours b4 the actual exam taken). In the quiz iscored 70% (30 sec/q), 88% (20 sec/q) & 91% (20 sec/q). I advise u not to take more than 30 sec/q which will keep you sharp.
(4) JWeb+ questions are better & nearer to the real exam question though slightly easier than the real one.
I scored 71%, 75%, 68%, 88% & 75% from 1st to 5th test accordingly.
(5) Sun sample test is not good --- 8 out of 10.
(6) Mika Harvoja's exam is very good. I scored 1st time 65%, second time (a few days later with new questions) 75%.
(7) JavaRanch mock was nice to appear but a little easier --- 84%
(8) Anand Chawla's mock was best --- 71%.
(9) Eudora Cobians mock 40% . A little bit memory & code-oriented and emphasize on topics that were not close to the exam questions
Hall Experience
There was a 15 minute servey of 9 questions asking for ur expertise on servlets/jsp/design patterns that has nothing to do with the real exam. The wording of questions were good & familiar if you study the various note & API. But some questions were trickier than the mock exams where i lost points. I got 4 design pattern questions among which 2 were out the 4 of exam objectives. 1 i knew but the other i had to guess and loss. There were more questions from JSP parts than i expected (20+) and i also think that various people are going to face various types of questions for the coming few days. Possbily after a while SUN will standardize the exam. After the exam i found 14 questions i have marked & u c that 12 of them i went wrong really. Yet it was a good exam to pass though a little bit easier in terms of tactful or code-oriented questions than SCJP. I didn't find any drag-and-drop question and in 3/4 questions i had to press exhibit button. 3 fill-in-the blank questions were there.
Acknowledgements
* Gagan Indus, Rishivan Sing & Wahid Sadik for their nice advices & wishes. U guys are not only genious but real friend of mine.
* My students of two batches in my training institue, for whom i had to prepare a lot. And may be i wouldn't appear the exam if i did nto had to take their classes. Thank u guys!
* My parents (they were always tensed whether i will pass or not), Fazlur Rahman, Faisal Ahmed.
* Gaurav Chang, Julia Koston.
* And all u javaranchers. I like this ranch more than anything else....
It has become a very long post indeed, so good bye now & will remain with u in this ranch (possibly with a new mission). But always will try to share with u. One thing making me happy that i m the first person in my country to pass the exam....
[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: Ashik uzzaman ]

[jawwad ahmed]

Congratulations...........
Inshallah i am scwcd giving on 31 jan.
Well are the questions of customtag were programmed based or theoritical.
Please mention configuration of each topic

[Dominic Steng�rd]

Congrats Ashik on you success and thanks for all your helpful tips!! :-)
Good look with your Java career.
Regards

[Vanitha Sugumaran]

Congratulations Ashik!
Vanitha.

[Axel Janssen]

Congrats Ashik.
Good luck for your further missions.
One of the crazy things of internet is to find yourself in the to-work-train thinking about if someone in remote Bangladesh has passed the exam or not. Now I know.
Axel
[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: Axel Janssen ]

[Jim Bertorelli]

Congratulations Ashik. Great job! What's next?

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

Congrats.
I hope you stay here and help us.
- satya

[Shrestha Sanjay]

Congratulation Ashik, You did a great job. ...

[Rohit Poddar]

Congratualtions Ashik
Great feedback

[Mark Spritzler]

Congrats Ashik. Thanks for your post, alot of good information, and thanks for the notes.
I have found all your posts very helpful for my studying, and hope you stay here for a little while to help us out that still haven't takent he exam yet.
Congrats
Mark

[frank davis]

Congratulations and good luck in your career!
Thanks very much for one of the most helpfull postings I've seen regarding preparation details.

herb slocomb
SCJP

[Gagan Indus]

Congratulations Ashik !!!
bright score , cool job !
and equally cool is the way you have chossen to go about it
study , coding , notes. and sharing things at almost each step.
( what ma'n , ya havent offered any drinks ? lol..
anyway .. i ll get drinks for us .. lol !)
Next on your list is?
Good luck for ur future efforts
( me planning to start prep for XML after few weeks , how about u ? )
--regards

[Fred Su]

Congratulations Ashik!
And thank you for your congratulations.
What's my next plan?
I take a great interest in developing wireless application with J2ME/MIDP.
"When you learn something, learn it by heart!"
I 100% agree with you!!
Su

[Mariusz Szurnacki]

Hi, Ashik!!!
Congratulations, my old friend!!! Well done!!!
Thanks for your tips and notes. I think they can be very useful...
I wish I could study 3/4 hours a day ;-)
But I won't give up and maybe one day I'll manage to pass SCJP2 finally...
OK, what next?
Have a nice day,
Mariusz

[Muhammad Farooq]

Congratulations Ashik, I know you will do it, enjoy your success and take a break.

[Pratibha Enjeti]

Congratulations!! Ashik, Enjoy your success.
-Pratibha.

[Reda Mokrane]

Congratulations Ashik
Thanks for the feedback

[Roopa Bagur]

Congratulations on passing the Web Component Developer for J2EE platform exam.

Originally posted by Ashik uzzaman:
Hi Pals,
Passed the exam with 81%. Have a lot to talk to you. Starting sequentially so that you can have an idea how you may proceed....
Preparation For The Exam
Completed my MSS, Economics from Dhaka University last year and 2-year's diploma from NIIT 1 year earlier. Passed my SCJP exam (91%) at 27th August which i prepared for a lot.
I had no prior experience in working with Java in a commercial environment (but have been working as a trainer in an IT training institute for one-and-half years). Found very difficult to study alone servlets/jsp and took 3 weeks to successfully install Tomcat 4. I started studying for the exam from 1st November 2001, so took 3 months to appear with average study of 4/5 hours a day. Could run my first servlet at that time without a knowledge of the difference between Servlets & JSP. Those who face problem Installing Tomcat 4 can see my post here...
First selected the books & materials to study from the discussions of this forum. Now i would say you to summarize as to read....
(1) Core Servlets & JSP (very good)
(2) Java Servlet Programming by O'Reilly (Jason Hunter) (excellent but as i got only first edition, it was too deprecated...yet waiting 4 the 2nd edition)
(3) Java Server Pages O'Reilly (average+)
When reading them i started coding to test most of the methods referred in Miftah Khan's Notes (very good, really) and prepared my notes as my own reference and now uploaded that 2 days earlier for you guys.... ...I always tried to share my experrience with you. Follow the link below for my short note on SCWCD exam :
http://www20.brinkster.com/ashik75
You should also go through the Ken Zrobok's Note which is approximately a complete tutorial for the exam. I did not get time to go thru more than once Michell's notes & Velmurugans Notes and only gone thru servlet specification twice (useful) and jsp specification once (not so good ). I crammed very few points for the exams. But i advice you do study the deployment descriptor & servlet api (methods, return types, parameters) very well.
Mock Exams
The last one week i was busy with the mocks and analyzing them and found i was following many deprecated methods & tags earlier... . Both SCWCD@Whiz & JWeb+ were good. But they have weeknesses too.
(1) SCWCD@Whiz has an excellent feature Quiz that's realy interesting & useful.
(2) SCWCD@Whiz's tips on exam is also good.
(3) But the 4 exams are easier than real SCWCD exam.
I scored 70% in diagnostics, 81.3% in test1, 69.5% in test2 and 91.53% in the final test (just 2 hours b4 the actual exam taken). In the quiz iscored 70% (30 sec/q), 88% (20 sec/q) & 91% (20 sec/q). I advise u not to take more than 30 sec/q which will keep you sharp.
(4) JWeb+ questions are better & nearer to the real exam question though slightly easier than the real one.
I scored 71%, 75%, 68%, 88% & 75% from 1st to 5th test accordingly.
(5) Sun sample test is not good --- 8 out of 10.
(6) Mika Harvoja's exam is very good. I scored 1st time 65%, second time (a few days later with new questions) 75%.
(7) JavaRanch mock was nice to appear but a little easier --- 84%
(8) Anand Chawla's mock was best --- 71%.
(9) Eudora Cobians mock 40% . A little bit memory & code-oriented and emphasize on topics that were not close to the exam questions
Hall Experience
There was a 15 minute servey of 9 questions asking for ur expertise on servlets/jsp/design patterns that has nothing to do with the real exam. The wording of questions were good & familiar if you study the various note & API. But some questions were trickier than the mock exams where i lost points. I got 4 design pattern questions among which 2 were out the 4 of exam objectives. 1 i knew but the other i had to guess and loss. There were more questions from JSP parts than i expected (20+) and i also think that various people are going to face various types of questions for the coming few days. Possbily after a while SUN will standardize the exam. After the exam i found 14 questions i have marked & u c that 12 of them i went wrong really. Yet it was a good exam to pass though a little bit easier in terms of tactful or code-oriented questions than SCJP. I didn't find any drag-and-drop question and in 3/4 questions i had to press exhibit button. 3 fill-in-the blank questions were there.
Acknowledgements
* Gagan Indus, Rishivan Sing & Wahid Sadik for their nice advices & wishes. U guys are not only genious but real friend of mine.
* My students of two batches in my training institue, for whom i had to prepare a lot. And may be i wouldn't appear the exam if i did nto had to take their classes. Thank u guys!
* My parents (they were always tensed whether i will pass or not), Fazlur Rahman, Faisal Ahmed.
* Gaurav Chang, Julia Koston.
* And all u javaranchers. I like this ranch more than anything else....
It has become a very long post indeed, so good bye now & will remain with u in this ranch (possibly with a new mission). But always will try to share with u. One thing making me happy that i m the first person in my country to pass the exam....
[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: Ashik uzzaman ]

[Fei Ng]

Congratulations man!!!

so, who won ? u or ersin?
and what is next?

[faiza haris]

hey Congrats!!! i was actually waiting for your success result and long tips list thanx for the help! and u'v scared me about design patterns...what other patterns not mentioned in the objectives were asked?
What is the bare minimum required to pass!!???
Your notes are a good help!
thanx
faiza

[Sonalika Kapoor]

Congrats ashik. Great job and analysis.
best wishes
sonal

[Padmaja Balaji]

CONGRATULATIONS !
Padmaja

[Jim Petersen]

Congratulations Ashik
As always your review is very revealing and I'm sure I'll refer to this post constantly over my study for the Web Component Badge
Hope you take time out to celebrate!

[Ruediger Waurig]

Ashik,
so glad to here that you’re success story continues.
Congratulations.
I’m very interested in what will be your next “mission”.
I myself am on my way towards the IBM’s specialist for WebSphere 4.0.
Enjoy what you’ve reached
Ruediger

[Chintan Rajyaguru]

Congratulations Ashik!!
You really did work very hard. There is always a pressure to learn when you are a teacher. I taught for 2 years and my mom used to say I studied more as a lecturer than I did as a student.
What is next on the list? Guys like you, FEI keep the tempo and enthu up in forum.
I hope you will be around in this forum..
Chintan

[Ningfeng Xu]

congratulations! What is next step?

[Poonam Akash]

Congratulations Ashik!!!
I was quite sure abt ur success man.
Well whats ur next target??
Bye n Enjoy ur success!

[Ashik Uzzaman]

Thnx to all u guys, seems very much to me that u liked me....
First i forgot to thank Carl Trusiac to maintain the excellent link page http://www.javaranch.com/scwcdlinks.jsp here & the javaranch mock exam. And also Chintan, Ersin (thnx for the info u mailed abt my resume & ofcourse for the book i m going to receive from u ), Satya, Rajat, Michell, Miftah for their outstanding contributions in this forum.
Thnx to Vanitha, Herb, Jawwad (both theory & coding from custom action man ), Dominic, Bertorelli, Sanjay, Mark, Enjeti, Reda, Roopa, Sonalika (Miss 100%), Mika (for his mock even b4 appearing the exam), Jim, Xu for replying me to add with the pleasure i m enjoying.
Axel, ya i m also fascinated with the services we r getting from internet...we many ppl who never would get a chance to b introduced r now like frnds of years...
Gagan, ya long time since we r not sharing the bottles... ...and wanna know the voucher fee of IBM XML certification from u b4 decide to prepare for.
Satya, i used to read ur posts in various forums even b4 passing SCJP.
Fred, it should b very challenging to work with J2ME that has gr8 potentials in future (at least Java was intended to do so from very ealry age).
Mariusz dear, probably u r not getting enough time....but u helped me a lot in both the exams u know. So would like to offer u my SCJP note (though elementary).
Farooq, u always encouraged me & had faith on me. How things r going on now in USA? Will let u know my project details shortly.
Fei, ersin & me drew the game ...so dear frnd u were my study-partner throughout the time (when we were studying Core Servlets & JSP). Hope u'll clear the exam with success after ur project is finished.
Faiza, i m providing the answer to ur query at the end of the post.
Padmaja, my old frnd....thnx for the eid greetings. Then u r keeping eyes everywhere...
O Jim, i just hope so.
Waurig, i took one month time to decide to go 4 SCWCD exam after passing SCJP last year. This time i'll take the same amount of time probabaly. But i would like to appear SCJD or SCJA if the vouchers wouldn't cost so much. Now enquiring to Gagan whether IBM XML exam is too costly or not. But getting good chance to work in local projects to gain some experience....which i'll give first priority!
Dear Chintan, i specially thnk u for the design pattern book review that u uploaded to my site for me. As i had not enough time, i couldn't go thru them....but willing to study them rigorously during my projects. And ur quote :

There is always a pressure to learn when you are a teacher. I taught for 2 years and my mom used to say I studied more as a lecturer than I did as a student.

is simply 100% compliant to my case as i m a lecturer for abt one-and-half years.
Poonam thnx for the faith man!
Now i m providing some guidelines to study for DEsign Patterns according to my experience from the exam and hope to provide info on other parts also in coming posts in this thread...
Design Patterns
I must say that the best place to study for design pattern is Sun's J2EE design pattern tutorial, the linkof which is in Carl's links page. This tutorial is slightly conveniently presented by Ken Zrobok's note for the 4 design patterns in the exam objectives. Stuudying them line-by-line is simply a must for u to score 100% in this part. Then for other patterns u go thru SingleTon, Factory, Facade, Session Facade, Front Controller pattern. I would like to add any more pattern so far got by others in this exam to be added as a reply to this post for completeness.
Design pattern questions are mostly theoritical and u don need to code to understand them. U have to get the logic why this particular pattern is most suitable for this situation and what's its advantages & disadvantages. Observe which patterns r closely related with each other so that u don get in the exam hall.
As u'll get approx 4 questions from this section u should give at least 2 full days on this topic to understand them well.
That's all from me on patterns and now hope to provide some feedbacks on Servlets & JSP in short future.

[Michelle Lee]

Hi ashik:
Congradulation! (also a bit late)
I passed my SCJP on 8, Jan and started to prepare for SCWCD without any kownledge of servlet/JSP, but always wondering if I can "paper SCWCD"?
Your success inspired me.
Can u tell me how many practice u have done when prepared for the exam. or as u said just "
When reading them i started coding to test most of the methods referred in Miftah Khan's Notes (very good, really)"
I have stick to servlet/jsp for almost twenty day, and almost finished core servlets and
java servlet programming by janson. Maybe read too much without digest, I still feel very confused.
one more question: is all the configuration work in tomcat done by web.xml? Where can u find all sort of info.(not covered in books?)

[Wahid Sadik]

Hi Fahim, congrats.... In all these great people of JavaRanch, u r the person who also helped me to have my SCJP.... many thx...
Paul

[Ashik Uzzaman]

Hi Mei,
As far as i remember, i coded approximately 300+ codes when preparing for SCJP2 and i coded 150+ codes to understand & clear SCWCD exam syllebus (but downloaded the syllebus only 10 days b4 the exam). If u study regularly & don give up until u understand a point u r trying to grasp, u'll do it in a nice fashion.
Wahid Sadik Paul,
I almost did nothing 4 u accept telling that Khalid Mughal is the best book to study for SCJP....yet feeling good that u count it well. Welcome to ur preparation for SCWCD exam....

[Harpreet Hira]

Hi ASHIK,
Congratulations.

[Pradeep Chopra]

Dear Ashik,
Many many congratulations on passing the exam!!! Thanks for your appreciation and valuable feedback on our product.
I really admire yout enthusiasm in studying and helping others study. Keep the spirit up!!!
Regards and best wishes
Pradeep
Whizlabs Software
http://www.whizlabs.com

[Ashik Uzzaman]

Thnx Hira.
Dear Pradeep, i m so glad to u that i got my SCWCD@Whiz as a gift or winner in JavaRanch and u sent me the key as soon as i approached to u (also won J@Whiz u know ). I have observed ur patterns and my comments r at the top. But i found a little problem in ur Diagnostic exam with event handling or more precisely focusing of the cursor in a textfield. I thank u that u have given a lot fill in the blanks (more than JWeb+). As SCWCD@Whiz were the first commercial mock, u were in a hurry. I insist u to add some more questions that do consist of the exact wordings of the servlet/jsp specs from SUN.
I still remember how enjoying was to play with the QUIZ portion....Thnx...

[Fazlur Rahman]

Hello all,
i am a very newcomer in this forum. I like java and plan to give scjp in march.
Now ashikuzzaman, i know you from very beginning Congratulations on ur passing.now what? Go for scjd?

[Fei Ng]

With all this INFO from you ! I will PASS!!
will i get a higher score than you?? hehehe...
i have set a Fed 14.
Still very busy with a project though. Not much time to study!
wish me luck!

[Ashik Uzzaman]

Fazlur Rahman,
Nice to c u in JavaRanch...Welcome! So when r u planning to regularly participate in ranch?
FEI NG,
Hope u'll do very good in the exam. But remember that u have to have a nice sleep the last night of the exam...

[Fazlur Rahman]

nice to see your post number . I will give the exam in march - i hope so. So people here are very active than all forums i have ever seen. Thanks all........

[Fei Ng]

heheheh.. The sleep! yes.. i hear u.