new bee!! Help with books and SCWCD certification

[Sangeetha Selvaraj]

Hi all,
This is a great site and has been a lot of help to me. I recently completed my SCJP1.4 certification and i want to move on to SCWCD. i have many questions
1. Whats this beta version ppl are talking abt? and will it be the one under SCWCD 6 months down the line( as in will the course objectives change soon?)
2. SCWCD Exam Study Kit: Java Web Component Developer Certification By Hanumant Deshmukh and Jignesh Malavia
i know this is the best book for the certification but i wud like to read some books to cover the topics in detail necessary for the exam, like some good refernce book. saw the links but there are so many books listed in the SCWCD page , i wud like some help as i cant buy many of them as of now. so i wud like one or 2 books which wud help me out...
3. it wud also be very helpful if some one cud guide me as to how to go abt it step by step, i know basics of java, html, javascript as of now....i am thinking servlets sud be the next step...
Sorry for the long query...will Greatly appreciate the help provided..
Sangeetha

[Sumit Amar]

SCWCD Beta exam is based on the J2EE 1.4 SDK. The major differences between this (1.4) and the previous SCWCD exam are, additions of new things viz. EL, JSTL, Tag files[SimpleTag] etc.
Yes, this exam will be available in production in about 2-3 months from now for a fee and will only contain ~60 questions (right now ~160).
Book: For the earlier SCWCD, I used Professional SCWCD from Wrox publication. Very to the point book. Since I haven't studied the Deshmukh book, I can't say anything about it.
You should read the specifications (it's little harder to read specs though), for SCWCD 1.4 along with other resources suggested by fellow ranchers.