Hello Rancher�s I had passed the exam with 88% (61 of 69) yesterday.
Thanks to Firstly I would like to thank Bryan Basham, Kathy Sierra & Bert Bates for sharing there wealth to us.
For Mikalai Zaikin,Frederic Esnault,Cheenu Dev,Kalaivanan Darairaj for there notes.
For Satou kurinosuke ,John Meyer and all the JavaRancher�s for there continuing support.
About the Preparation I had little knowledge of
servlets and
jsp before starting for preparation of the exam.
It had taken me roughly 2 months of preparation.The last week being for mocks.
The mocks that I had used are Jirish(free) &Jwebplus(commercial).
I had referred to the spec quite often when I had not understood some concepts.
About the Exam Ha the exam contains 70 questions(not as 69) and evenly asked in all the topics.
The Section Analysis is as follows
The servlet Thechnology Model 100%
The structure and Deployment of web applications 87%(Lost 1Question)
The web container model 85%(Lost 1Question)
Session Management 71%(Lost 2Question)
Web Application Security 83%(Lost 1Question)
The JSP Technology Model 100%
EL 100%
Standard Actions 75%(Lost 1Question)
Tag Libraries 87%(Lost 1Question)
Custom Tag Library 100%
J2EE Patterns 83%(Lost 1Question)
I felt Session ,custom tag and standard actions to be little tough.
Refer to the Dynamic attributes tutorial of BrainBasham,like what should the Tag handler class implement and how it should be configured in the TLD. I had got 2 questions like that.
The patters is quite easy. Head first is sufficient. But do remember about the characteristics of each
Pattern carefully. I had lost in that.
The remaining are quite similar to Head First.
The Mistakes that I had done I had taken the final mock exam from the book the evening before taking the exam.so there was no time
to go thorough were I was quite weak.
In the exam I did not mark the drag&drop answers in pad .when I revisited them they are gone.so doing the same
Questions again.I had got 8 questions.
About Final mock exam in the Head First. Take the exam atleast by a day before taking the exam.It would be very usefull for you to go through the mistakes.I had got 66% in it.
First take the exam as said .Then without looking at the answers take some ones help to tell you how many answers are correct for each questions and retry to answer the question.I had got 83% in that. It will be the close to what you will be getting in the exam.I had got 88%(+5 more).
For those who are about to prepare for the Exam. Head First is the wright choice.I had nearly wasted a lot of time in searching for a good book.
A commercial mock is an optional.But it had helped me.
First it will take a lot of time to start.Butdon�t loose hope.I personally wasted(usefull)a lot of time in first 5 to 6 chapters.I am not used to Head first style.But now I fell it is the best way around to learn.
Use JavaRanch regularly.
For those who are taking for the Exam. The exam is quite easy,more or less the way in the final mock except that it shows how many answers are correct.
And all the Best to you.
Thanks
satish saravanan.G