Hey all,
I passed the SCMAD exam with 67% on 12.03.2004 after preparing for 3 weeks. I've been developing MIDlets for almost 2 years and got certified to gauge my overall knowledge and understanding. The only material I used to study were the APIs and Whizlabs.
Overall the exam was the most difficult Sun exam I've ever taken. Incidently, it was also the worst written. The test questions are very very poorly written; not tricky, not challenging, simply poorly written. Moreover, the answers (options) are just as vague. I whole-heartedly encourage Sun to revisit the grammar and sentence structure of the questions/options because I'm very confident others will encounter the same issue. Additionally, I encourage Sun to check the accuracy of the question/options because I came across 2 questions w/o correct options. Maybe this is why the passing score is 55%
As for exam preparation, I recommend writing as many small 'test' apps as possible and taking as many mock exams as possible. Here are my average SCMAD mock exam scores:
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Diagnostic: 60/68
P. Test 1: 57/68
P. Test 2: 48/68
P. Test 3: 59/68
Final: 48/68
Quiz: 139/150 (12 sec/per question)
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I believe the actual exam closely resembles P. Test 2 and the Final Exam.
The Whizlabs SCMAD provides excellent explanations to their questions (although there are a handfull of errors) and the interface is nice. Is it worth $80?? I think not. Where is the Enthuware SCMAD ???
As for exam experience, here's what I recall:
- Know HTTPConnection methods
- Almost 1/3 - 1/2 the exam are questions based on code snippets [know CommandListener, GameCanvas(paint/repaint), RecordStore creation, RMS Exceptions, casting Connections]
- Understand x.509 PKI authentication
- Lots and lots of PushRegistry [static vs. dynamic, IP filtering, send/receive exceptions, etc..]
- Understand Manifest / JAD permissions
- WMA questions are written badly, so watch out.
Here is my exam section analysis:
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JTWI: 75%
CLDC: 100%
Security: 85%
Networking: 57%
Application Model: 50%
MIDP Persistent Storage: 66%
Push Registry: 66%
MIDP UI API: 60%
MIDP Game API: 75%
MMAPI: 80%
WMA: 33%
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All-in-all, I'm pleased I passed the exam

; I wanted a better score (damn personal pride
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), so I'll be sure to study smarter next time.
Next, I'm off the tackle the Oracle DBA (associate), then the MCSD VS.NET, and finally to round off 2005 the PMP.
Best of luck to everyone!
-PP
[ December 05, 2004: Message edited by: peter parker ]