Massimiliano Mercogliano

Congratulations Adrian.

IBM-484 should not be a problem for you since you have passed IBM-287.

IBM-486 is not easy, but I'm almost sure you will enjoy it as we did.

Good luck for your next exams

Massimiliano.

I'm very impressed: 5 exams in 5 weeks

Great jobs and great hints.

Congratulations

Hi all,

finally (just before the expiration date of the voucher) I've decided to complete the ICED certification with the IBM-287 exam, cleared after a little more than a week of preparation.

I've focused my study on Howard Kushner's book & J2EE specification V1.3, but I've used also the "SCWCD exam study kit" as a reference for Web components; anyway I recommend you to concentrate mainly on Kushner's book.

ICE 287 test has been of great use and I must admit that Nicholas Cheung was right saying that real test contains a lot of ICE test questions somewhat "revised", so I suggest candidates to focus attention mainly (but *not* uniquely) on the test areas covered by the ICE tests.

J2EE (EJB & Web) questions are usually of easy/medium complexity if you are an experienced developer/architect, so I suggest you to concentrate mainly on these areas if you have not a strong developer experience with WSAD environment and time is short.

My next goals: SCEA (I'm waiting for beta) & PMP.

Thanks to all the people that have contributed, with their precious suggestions/hints, to the greatness of this group, that can be undoubtedly considered a starting point for all people preparing to take IBM & Sun certifications.

Good luck.

Massimiliano.
[ June 30, 2004: Message edited by: Massimiliano Mercogliano ]

Congratulations, man!
What's your next step ? Are you also working for the "IBM certified enterprise developer" certification ?

Congrats!
I agree with you: the test was *not* easy, and I suppose it cannot be passed by a person without experience or a deep knowledge on J2EE platform.
Anyway you passed it. Enjoy yourself.
Massimiliano

Good job, man !!
Score is not as important as to pass the exam.
What's your next exam? Maybe IBM-287 ?
Massimiliano

Well,... it's not a great score, but I'm glad I've passed it anyway.
The real exam is harder than the ICE test, since it tests not only your knowledge on J2EE architecture, but also best practices applied to real business cases.
My preparation time : 3/4 days.
Preparation focused only on JAAS, JCA and JAXP, since for the other stuff I was self-confident on my preparation for SCBCD beta (june 2003) and IBM-483 exam (march 2003).
The only simulator I've used is the ICE test.
Bye,
Massimiliano

Congratulations
I'm almost sure you will not have troubles passing SCBCD.
Now it's time to relax yourself and drink a beer
Bye.

Have a look at this link: http://suned.sun.com/US/certification/java/
... look at the right frame (do you see a yellow box?) ... and enjoy yourself, the beta exam finally has arrived
Regards,
Massimiliano

Thank you for your valuable information and good luck with your next certification.
Regards,
Massimiliano.

Really an awesome result
Congratulation again!
Please, could you give me some info about your PMP certification (impact on work, tips) ?
I'm trying to evaluate the impact of this certification on industry for professionals in IT.
Thanks,
Massimiliano.

Here are my opinions about this exam.
--------------------------------------------
Exam difficulty: medium
Preparation time: 1 month
Time Required for test: 1 hour 30 minutes
My scores:
Section % of Test Score
--------------------------------------------------
Development Process 13% 100%
Requirements Modeling 18% 90%
Architecture 13% 86%
Static Modeling 21% 83%
Dynamic Modeling 22% 100%
Design and Implementation Tech. 13% 43%
I know... I should review my knowledge about last section
But in my testing center there was such a lot noise I couldn't think clearly ....

Preparation Materials:
- Fowler, "UML Distilled" 2/e
- Gamma, "Design patterns - Elements of reusable Object-Oriented Software"
- Larman "Applying UML and Patterns" 2/e
- Notes on Larman by Ezequiel Cuellar (ObjectsByDesign)
Mock Exams:
- IBM's ICE site
- Whizlabs OOAD
- Tests of BParanj and CFV (ObjectsByDesign)

Some hints:
- Fowler's book is the Bible for this exam ( read at least two times the book and give a deep look at the Ezequiel Cuellar's notes to reach almost all you need to know for the exam ).
- Larman book contains really more details than necessary (on real exam I've not found any question about GRASP patterns or explicit reference to some concept like SSD or contracts, but maybe I was lucky :-) ). This book doesn't seem to be a must for this exam if you have not enough money to buy it, since all the information that can be useful has been reported on "Ezequiel Cuellar's notes"
- Design pattern are barely requested on real exam; you need only a basic knowledge on fundamental patterns (Gamma's book is not necessary but useful to reach a deeper understanding on the subject)
- I agree with Pawel Bobrow in saying exhibits are rarely useful since the solutions can be extracted directly from the text of questions
- I agree also with Theodore Casser in saying Whizlabs and ObjectByDesign tests are more difficult than the real exam.
Hope this helps.
Thanks you all to contribute to make really great and useful javaranch.
Sorry for my english
--------------------------------------------------
Massimiliano Mercogliano
SCJP2, SCJD 1.4Beta, IBM 486 - OOAD