Today I took the 1Z0-816 exam and passed with 88%. That's about 70 out of 80 questions correct. I passed 1Z0-815 in early March this year, but I had to wait for the study guide by Scott and Jeanne to come out in July. I started studying for 1Z0-816 in early August. I had planned to take the exam the earliest in October, but due to the retirement of 1Z0-816 by end of September, I quickly took the plunge and registered for the exam as soon as possible. I have a full time job, so most of my studying were on weekends. For the last three days before the exam, and on the exam day today, I applied for leave from work. That gave me a full five days (including the weekend) for the exam cram. I would have preferred to have studied two or three months before taking the exam. This rush to take the exam actually made me quite stressed. In the end, it was worth it. I actually scored better than 1Z0-815, which I got 82% for three months of study.
I was quite surprised to see many questions in 1Z0-816 which were quite easy. They were like four answer choices, and the answers were obvious. There were some questions that I had trouble with, and I had to mark them for review later. I studied with the study guide and doing the questions on the book's
test bank online only. I find that the exam questions were easier than those in the book and test bank. They were not as tricky and were more straight forward. For example, if they are asking you about one topic, they will not trick you for not paying enough attention and having an answer totally nothing to do with the topic. This is something the study guide and test bank like to do. There were also only about two or three questions with an answer that says that the code will not compile (contrast this to the study quite and test bank with many questions having such an answer choice). This makes the exam a lot easier.
When I completed the exam, the result was displayed on the screen immediately. I was quite surprised because we were told that the answer will only be posted online after some time. In fact, getting the result immediately used to be the way when I took Sun certification and other certifications previously. After I was done and before I left the testing centre, I was given a piece of paper saying that the result will only be available later and that I will receive an e-mail notification about 30 minutes later on how to retrieve the result. I login to CertView as soon as I left the testing centre, and I can see my result there.
In CertView, I still can't see the certificate yet. Although I can see my latest result under "Latest PVUE Exam Results", it is still not reflected under "Assessment History", "Review Assessment History", "Review Accomplishment History" or "Download eCertificates". The web site says that it would take up to 48 hours for it to be processed. For those who have obtained any certification, how long realistically will you be able to get the certificate after you have completed the last exam?
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