Passed yesterday....
Stephen Cowell
Greenhorn
Posts: 22
posted 15 years ago
I managed to pass the scwcd exam yesterday. I seem to be strangely drawn to a score of 84%, having scored that in SCJP and now in SCWCD.
Briefly my experiences in preparing for and sitting this exam were
1) Tomcat was a little confusing to set up. I started following a set of instructions that I latter realised were for installing Tomcat as a plug in to Apache, rather than installing Tomcat as a stand alone server. Installing it as a stand alone server proved much easier, so I now have Apache running on port 80 and Tomcat on port 8180.
2) I bought only 1 book to study from, "More Servlets and Java Server Pages" by Marty Hall. I found the book excellent, although a few of the chapters can be skipped as they fall outside the objectives (eg the one on filters and the final chapter). I also read the servlet API & half of the JSP API. The JSP API is a real slog.
3) In a pinch, if money is a real issue, to prepare for this exam you could probably get away with not buying any books. Instead read the online "Core Servlets and Java Server Pages", the Sun servlet and JSP APIs (to understand the newer version of JSP & servlets) and the various other online notes and tutorials.
4) I bought the JWebPlus mock test and found it to be inferior to their excellent JQ+ (which I bought last year in the lead up to my SCJP exam). Reasons I disliked it were
a) it's way too expensive
b) it has very poor spelling and grammar. At least a third to a half of the questions have a spelling mistake or poor grammar making the question ambiguous or hard to understand. Surely if the authors of the questions don't have English as their first language they could employ a proof reader to correct their mistakes.
c) some of the questions test SCJP objectives instead of SCWCD
d) it had only 5 tests, instead of the 9 or so that JQ+ had
5) The SCWCD exam itself seemed to start off with very easy questions for the first two thirds before the questions become very tough for the last 15 or so. My impression is that it is an easy test to pass with minimal effort as there are enough easy questions in the exam. However it is tough to get a 90+% score unless a lot of study is done.
6) My own preparation effort was about 3 hours a day for 2 weeks.
Steve.
Briefly my experiences in preparing for and sitting this exam were
1) Tomcat was a little confusing to set up. I started following a set of instructions that I latter realised were for installing Tomcat as a plug in to Apache, rather than installing Tomcat as a stand alone server. Installing it as a stand alone server proved much easier, so I now have Apache running on port 80 and Tomcat on port 8180.
2) I bought only 1 book to study from, "More Servlets and Java Server Pages" by Marty Hall. I found the book excellent, although a few of the chapters can be skipped as they fall outside the objectives (eg the one on filters and the final chapter). I also read the servlet API & half of the JSP API. The JSP API is a real slog.
3) In a pinch, if money is a real issue, to prepare for this exam you could probably get away with not buying any books. Instead read the online "Core Servlets and Java Server Pages", the Sun servlet and JSP APIs (to understand the newer version of JSP & servlets) and the various other online notes and tutorials.
4) I bought the JWebPlus mock test and found it to be inferior to their excellent JQ+ (which I bought last year in the lead up to my SCJP exam). Reasons I disliked it were
a) it's way too expensive
b) it has very poor spelling and grammar. At least a third to a half of the questions have a spelling mistake or poor grammar making the question ambiguous or hard to understand. Surely if the authors of the questions don't have English as their first language they could employ a proof reader to correct their mistakes.
c) some of the questions test SCJP objectives instead of SCWCD
d) it had only 5 tests, instead of the 9 or so that JQ+ had
5) The SCWCD exam itself seemed to start off with very easy questions for the first two thirds before the questions become very tough for the last 15 or so. My impression is that it is an easy test to pass with minimal effort as there are enough easy questions in the exam. However it is tough to get a 90+% score unless a lot of study is done.
6) My own preparation effort was about 3 hours a day for 2 weeks.
Steve.
Ian B Anderson
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Vikrama Sanjeeva
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Stephen Cowell
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Vamsidhar Chenepalli
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Cindy Mokrane
Greenhorn
Posts: 5
posted 15 years ago
Congratulations
so you mean that filtering is not part of SCWCD, to be or not to be?
Cindy
2) I bought only 1 book to study from, "More Servlets and Java Server Pages" by Marty Hall. I found the book excellent, although a few of the chapters can be skipped as they fall outside the objectives (eg the one on filters and the final chapter). I also read the servlet API & half of the JSP API. The JSP API is a real slog.
so you mean that filtering is not part of SCWCD, to be or not to be?
Cindy
Stephen Cowell
Greenhorn
Posts: 22
posted 15 years ago
I'm changing my mind every day. Today its IBM OOAD, yesterday it was SCEA, day before it was SCJD. I don't currently work with Java although I have 12 years IT experience in (mumble) cobol. So I'm trying to figure out what might be best to get my foot in the door as a Java developer. Tough choice.
Steve.
Originally posted by Ian B Anderson:
Congratulations,
What exam are you going to take next?
Ian
I'm changing my mind every day. Today its IBM OOAD, yesterday it was SCEA, day before it was SCJD. I don't currently work with Java although I have 12 years IT experience in (mumble) cobol. So I'm trying to figure out what might be best to get my foot in the door as a Java developer. Tough choice.
Steve.
Stephen Cowell
Greenhorn
Posts: 22
posted 15 years ago
Cindy, I know, I was suprised too since filtering is a major new feature of the 2.3 spec. However have a read of the objectives for SCWCD and you wont see a word on filtering.
SteveC.
Originally posted by Cindy Mokrane:
Congratulations
so you mean that filtering is not part of SCWCD, to be or not to be?
Cindy
Cindy, I know, I was suprised too since filtering is a major new feature of the 2.3 spec. However have a read of the objectives for SCWCD and you wont see a word on filtering.
SteveC.
posted 15 years ago
Congrats Stephan, good job done! And good feedback...
Next plan?
Next plan?
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Paul Anilprem
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posted 15 years ago
Congratulations for your success, Stephen. We are very sorry to hear that JWebPlus was not very helpful to you.
We do want to fix the grammatical errors and for this purposes, we have decided to invite somebody from JavaRanch. Since there are so many experienced and enthusiatic people here, I believe this would be the best place to ask help for
If anybody is interested in reviewing the question bank, please contact me at a_paul1@hotmail.com . Also, please mention the compensation that you would expect for this. Please keep in mind that we are not a big company (yet, that is
).
We do want to fix the grammatical errors and for this purposes, we have decided to invite somebody from JavaRanch. Since there are so many experienced and enthusiatic people here, I believe this would be the best place to ask help for
If anybody is interested in reviewing the question bank, please contact me at a_paul1@hotmail.com . Also, please mention the compensation that you would expect for this. Please keep in mind that we are not a big company (yet, that is
).Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
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Jim Bertorelli
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