a personal scwcd success guide

[Anonymous]

howdy all,
passed the exam w/ 93% yesterday afternoon and wanted to share the course of study i followed. my work experience in the web tier has been all within struts, so a good portion of the scwcd material was "newish" (was familiar with the general concepts, but had relied on struts in the past to take care of the particulars)
chronological, spanning a months time:
1. reviewed cert objectives
2. undertook some tutorials on jsp and servlets
3. read the jsp and servlets specs
4. read the wrox scwcd study guide
5. made study guide from wrox chapter summaries
6. MOCK EXAMS - most crucial, usually did 3x/day
7. did mini-implementations to test particulars
8. implemented wrox case study
9. reviewed highlighted items from wrox
10. reread specs - much more came to light
11. reread wrox guide
12. made a web.xml with all relevant elements
13. commited TLD and DD to memory
14. reviewed study guide (item 5) right up to exam time
exam turned out to be easier than study level, but then that's an ideal situation anyway. the mock exam by mika hirvasoja is the closest approximation to the real thing.
best of luck to all!

[Ken Januski]

Erick,
Congratulations and thanks for the info. If I remember correctly, and I can't say I trust my memory, you were also going to read the Deshmukh book. Did you end up not doing so, if that was actually you?
Also can you say how the Javaranch mock tests compared to the others? Out of curiosity I tried one today, though I knew I'd forgotten almost everything about tags, and I did surprisingly well. That made me think that they must be a bit easier than the others. Or maybe I just got lucky in the questions I was asked. Anyway thanks for any further info.
Ken

[Anonymous]

Ken,
I had indeed been inquiring about the Deshmukh book in weeks past. I'd ordered it (along with a bunch of coffee table books on Colorado) from Amazon and asked for free shipping. The delivery date was well beyond what would be useful for the exam. Attempts to speed the process pushed the delivery date back even more. Eventually had to cancel the Deshmukh book. BTW: the coffee table books are now expected in late June.
The Wrox book proved valuable though and can be relied on to provide all that's needed for the exam.
The JavaRanch mocks are somewhat on the easy side. The exam was not as difficult as expected. Mika's mock is a better barometer of your readiness for the exam. JDiscuss has a nice set of mocks. I ran through these sets many times to be ready for the means used to present exam questions, the aim being not to ever get rattled by how a question was phrased. Mika's mock is outstanding. His has answers immediately available per question. I'd make my selections, then verify with his answers, but leave my answer in place even if incorrect to get an accurate percentage at the end of the run.
Cobain's mock was too difficult. I scanned it and felt that trying to obsess about the content therein would actually take my studies off the path. It's a good resource for curiousity and self-testing, but perhaps less so for the actual exam.

[Ken Januski]

Hi Erick,
Thanks for this and previous info. It sounds like a great game plan for understanding the material and then passing the test. I know I'll make use of it and hope others do as well.
I'm actually reading the Wrox book now having gone through the Deshmukh book once. Overall I'd say I prefer the Deshmukh book in that it seems to cover the objectives a little more thoroughly. But the Wrox book is still a refreshing complement to it. I haven't yet gotten to the Case Study chapter in the Wrox book but I'm sure I'll find it very useful. From what I've read so far the Wrox book seems to veer more from the strict exam objectives to more practical examples. And I like that.
As far as Amazon I've had similar experiences with the free shipping. Most of the time it's great but every once in awhile you have to wonder if they book you've ordered has even been written yet.:-)

[Andy Wong]

Anyone got the case study by wrox? I would like to implement it myself to practice my knowledge for the exam.

[bobby chaurasia]

Could you please post the list of mock exams you took. Thanks