Hi Ranhcers,
Yesterday I wrote Part-1 and Passed with passing marks (57%)

. I attempted last question in last minute left, and perhaps that answer decided my destiny.
I could not spare time to prepare for this exam. My coupon was expiring yesterday so gave the
test. Since I have around 5 yrs of experience in Java/J2EE, perhaps my exposure to
Java EE worked here.
Though I did not get time to study different books for preparation but couple of months back I took printout of '
SCEA Study Guide by MarkCade and Simon Roberts (Blueprints)' and went through its contents to have a feel what is expected in this exam. Also, I generally use Java EE 5 Tutorial for referring to different
JEE technologies. And yes for consolidated study on Section 1, 2 and 8 MZ's notes are the best. Though I could not go thru any of the above from preparation point of view in last few months. As per my observation, the overview of all the different technologies used in java, like EJB,
JSP,
JSF,
Servlets, JMS, JPA, JCA and Security and good understanding of Design
patterns and Core J2EE patterns is expected.
Lot of questions from Security (around 12) and Design/J2EE patterns (around 10) were there. Many situational questions like which architecture or Technology should be used in a given scenario. If one is comfortable with the 1, 2, and three tier architectures from Scalability, manageability, reliability etc. parameters point of views and knows the basic usage scenarios of different technologies (i.e. JMS is used when asynchronous communication is required), can easily answer them. We can say that this exam targets on architectural questions
Around 3 questions on Connector architecture, 5-6 on Web services 7-8 from EJB, 7-8 from Web tier, 4-5 on JSF.
Study material to refer:
1. Design/J2EE patterns books as prescribed in syllabus.
2. SCEA Study Guide by MarkCade and Simon Roberts (Blueprints) - a must to have a feel of the exam expectations, though its contents are from the previous SCEA test point of view
3. Java EE 5 Tutorial.
4. MZ's notes for Section 1,2 and 8
Best of luck of other aspirants.
~Ashvini