Passed OCEJWCD with 92%

[Benjamin Davies]

I passed the 1Z0-899 Java Platform, EE 6 Web Component Developer Certified Expert Exam with 92% last week and I'm here to share the steps I took to achieve this:

I already had previous knowledge of servlets/jsp, so my plan was to read Head First Servlets & JSPs, 2nd edition book for the topics I wasn't very good at, and then start simulation after simulation until I feel prepared. So the whole process took 45 days.

For the new Servlet 3.0 stuff I went straight to the specification. Also downloaded JSP Spec 2.2.

The Java EE 6 Tutorial helped a lot as well

Now, for the exams simulation, which is the most important part IMO, I tried whizlabs first to my total disappointment and discontent. The questions are badly written, some of them adhere older servlets specs and not 3.0 (even though I paid more money for a JEE6 mock exam), and they will not give your money back. Then I went here and saw really good feedback about Enthuware exams and I guarantee you that THIS IS THE WAY TO GO. Enthuware have like a million times more quality than whizlabs, more questions, and it's also cheaper! And they respond to your feedback almost instantly. Lots of questions on the exam were just like the questions on Enthuware's mock exams, and I can say I would never pass without studying enthuware's mock exams. Specially with whizlabs clouding my knowledge.
Another must have exam to test your knowledge on the new servlet 3.0 functionality is the mock exam by Piotr Nowicki.
Finally, I took the little mock exams on the HFSJ book at the end of each chapter, and also the big one at the end.

Here's my Enthuware progress. The mocks are really really good and will make you sharp as a knife:
Test 1 - 70%
Test 2 - 89%
Test 3 - 89%
Test 4 - 75%
Test 5 - 91%
Test 6 - 84%
Test 7 - 81%
Test 8 - 91%
Test 9 - 86%
Last Day Test - 86%

My test was pretty broad and had a huge variety of topics. I got no questions on @Resource injection annotations, this is the only topic I can't remember seeing there. Make sure you do not ignore the new Servlet 3.0 stuff cause they'll be there.

[Alex Theedom]

Congratulations and great score.

I plan to take the exam next week and I am concerned about the depths of knowledge required for the following topics:

Taglibs (classic, simple and file),
Dynamic registration of servlets/filters
async servlets and
web fragments

Could you give me a heads up on how these topic were examined and to what depth. The exam syllabus does specify this information.

If you are able to shed a light on any further information regarding the topics examined I should be most grateful. I am concerned that I have not studied all the topics.

I totally agree with your comment regarding the Enthuware exam. I have been doing the practice exams and they have help me a lot, however they are a little slim on the servlet 3.0 topics and those mentioned above.

Thanks for any you can tell me.

[Benjamin Davies]

Thank you! I'll share with you how I worked on those topics you listed:

Taglibs (classic, simple and file),
All I needed was the Head First book chapters on this subject and make sure you do the mocks to pin the information on your head.
I also got one question about variable element on TLDs (the one that has "NESTED", "AT_BEGIN" and "AT_END") which wasn't present on the book, but covered on the specs and mock exams.
Dynamic registration of servlets/filters
Go for the mock exams by Piotr Nowicki. This and the questions on Enthuware's were enough for the exam in my case. If you are having difficulty understanding an explanation, read the chapter on the servlet spec. Also, make sure you understand what each interface is for:
Registration
init parameter

ServletRegistration
addMapping and addMappings

Registration.Dynamic
setAsyncSupported

ServletRegistration.Dynamic
setLoadOnStartup, setMultipartConfig, setRunAsRole(rolename), setServletSecurity(servletsecurityelement)
async servlets and
For this one I again went to the mock exams by Piotr Nowicki and the servlet spec is pretty clear and very informative on this subject. Just make sure you know how to start an async context, dispatch/forward back and forth, how to enable it on a servlet/filter, and know how to use asynclistener.
web fragments
This one is the simplest compared to the other. Learn the rules of merging and ordering, where to put the files, metadata-complete and you should be good to go.

Enthuware isn't all about the new servlet 3 topics because they are still minority on the exam (at least the one I took, we all know oracle keeps different test sets). Piotr Nowicki's exam is all about servlet 3, so if you understand that you should be good to go.
Make sure you keep doing mocks, if you are doing well on mocks, you most certainly will do well in the big day.

Good luck and make sure to share the good news when you pass.

[Alex Theedom]

Thank you very much Benjamin for you feedback on the exam. I have just done the Piotr Nowicki's exam and am reviewing the errors.

I will let you all know how things turn out on the big day.

Thanks again.

[Paul Anilprem]

Congratulations!!! Great score!!!
Glad to know that our s/w was helpful in your preparation.

[Devika Sivaraman]

Thanks a ton, have just followed your guide lines and post, passed OCEWCD exam with 94%.

[Abhay Agarwal]

Congrats thanks for sharing these details.

[Benjamin Davies]

Devika Sivaraman wrote:Thanks a ton, have just followed your guide lines and post, passed OCEWCD exam with 94%.

REALLY? I'm so glad it was useful to someone! Congratulations on this great achievement of yours!!! Enjoy the title

[John Hamiltoon]

Fully agree re Whizlabs OCEJWCD and Enthuware OCEJWCD .

Whizlabs contains many errors (I emailed them about a few of them which they fixed but didn't email them about all of them as there were too many). Questions with errors in them is not what you need when trying to learn!!

Also, the Whizlabs OCEJWCD training videos are both poor quality and are narated by someone who is not a native english speaker and while it is spoken clearly many of the words are pronounced incorrectly which personally I found irritating. The person who narates I think also has no knowledge of programming as he does strange things like read out blocks of code even though they are in the slide in front of you.

Enthuware on the other hand has hundreds of high quality questions and I've yet to find an error (and you get your money back if you find 3 errors).

I'd HIGHLY recommend Enthuware over Whizlabs - Whizlabs OCEJWCD is overpriced and garbage.

[arulk pillai]

Wow, Well done.

[John Hamiltoon]

Don't mean to go on about Whizlabs but REALLY, don't buy it!! Not only are the Whizlabs questions poor quality, the website is also unresponive regularly.

Here's an example of a question:

"Which statements are true about the security-related tags in a deployment descriptor?"

with one of the choices being:
"A tag can have many tags." (which is a correct answer!)

It's really frustrating to try and work out what the questions even mean a lot of the time

[Joe Harry]

Congratulations!