Ken King

This past Saturday, I finally took this exam...and passed with an 84%.

I was actually a bit surprised as I didn't think I did as well as that.

So my advice?

1. HFSJ was the book I used for this exam. I wasn't sure I was going to like the format. However, it really did help me to visualize and understand some of the concepts. This is a good book.

2. In terms of mock exams, I used both Enthuware and Whizlabs. Whizlabs is generally a bit harder than the actual exam. However, it helps you to think and understand concepts a little better. Enthuware was pretty close in terms of difficulty to the real thing. In fact, some of their questions are VERY close to the real thing. I think you can use either one of them but I like to be thorough.

The exam was 80 questions and you had almost 3 hours for it. However, I was pretty much done after 90 minutes. I ran through it once and then reviewed the questions I marked. Some of these questions do not count towards your total. Without going into details, a couple of questions I had were obvious questions they were validating for possible future purposes.

If you are willing to put the effort in and use the tools mentioned above, you will have success. Best of luck everyone.
[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Ken King ]

If this is Question #7, you left out half of the statement...the whole statement reads:

"Attributes bound into a session are available to any other servlet that belongs to the same ServletContext and handles a request identified as being part of the same session.

This statement is word for word out of the Servlet 2.4 specification document (page 59).

To rephrase it, any attributes that are bound into a session are available to all servlets that (a) are a part of the same ServletContext AND (b) handle requests that are a part of the same session.

Hope this clarifies.

I've been using both. People have been saying that the Enthuware exams more closely resemble the level of difficulty of the actual exam while the Whizlabs software is a bit tougher. Personally, I don't think you can go wrong with either one.

Apparently, from what I've heard, the latest version of the SCWCD Exam Study Kit has some glaring errors in it. Use the HFSJ book as your main reference (with the errata list handy of course).

My general philosophy is that if you have to question whether you are ready or not....then you probably are not.

I don't particularly like the "write the exam" as an answer....especially when it is $200 a pop to write it....little expensive.

I'm currently working through the Enthuware mock exams (done three). Failed the first one and averaged around 70% on the last two I did. Still finding some stupid mistakes I am making plus some little tidbits that I didn't know about. At this point, I am figuring out what sections I'm really not sure about...so I know I still have a little way to go.

Thanks for the link Christophe. I was getting confused with one of the Enthuware questions on this topic (the explanation they gave was a little vague). This cleared it up.

I would suggest using it as a reference but beyond that, I wouldn't make them the primary focus of your study.

I decided the mock exams from Enthuware for this exam along with the ETS Viewer it requires. However, the product is a little spotty. Sometimes it opens up fine and sometimes it doesn't open up at all. The javaw.exe program is running, I'm using java 1.5, and I have restarted my computer. It doesn't seem to open up at all now.

Just curious if anyone else has come across this problem with this software?

You should also make sure that your form has the POST method specified..

<form action="/someServlet" method="POST">
form stuff here
</form>

Thanks. I already have that book. However, I want to use some of the mock exams as a supplementary study tool. I think I have eliminated Transcender just based on price (compared to the other two).

I don't have any experience with that book, so I really can't comment on it. I would suggest doing a search on the forum and see what other people have to say about it.

I would probably recommend starting with the "Head First" book to get an idea of what you will be studying (since the people who wrote that book also constructed the actual exam questions). That is the book that I'm using.

I'm not sure how old the "Core Servlets" book is. Keep in mind that the exam covers JSP2.0...that book may only be JSP1.2. Nevertheless, that series does have several code examples/exercises that will be useful.

As for the specs, they are good for a reference but, in my opinion, you don't need to study them as you would the books mentioned above. Just basically use them as a reference..in fact, from what I've read here, you can do pretty well on the exam without studying these as the "Head First" book covers pretty much what you require.

Good luck!

Okay, there is Transcender, Enthuware, and Whizlabs. Assuming you can only purchase one, which one would you recommend?