After seven month of preparing I have passed SCBCD 5 with 95%.
The exam was difficult but fair.
I have read the following books:
EJB 3 in Action: A boring read and sometimes confusing. Not a good start for beginners. I don't like this book.
Pro EJB 3: The best book regarding JPA. Excellent and highly recommended.
Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 from Bill Burke: Easy to read and easy to understand. I have learned a lot from this book.
JBoss in Action from Peter Johnson (a Javaranch-moderator): Amazing book, interesting to read and very competent & comprehensive. Invaluable!
JBoss AS 5 Development from Francesco Marchioni: A good survey through JBoss and the JBoss Tools for Eclipse. This book contains good informations for the practical work with JEE.
JBoss Tools 3 Developer's Guide from Anghel Leonard: Nice to read, but I have missed EJB- and JPA-tutorials.
Mikalai Zaikin Study Guide: Very professional compendium for the exam objectives.
Refering sometimes to the EJB specs.
JPA is not that easy and you cannot grasp the concepts only with one book. "Pro EJB 3", "Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0" and "JBoss in Action" are the best technical books I have read for a long time.
What's next? Learning SEAM.
JBoss rocks. Eclipse, too!
Regards
Oliver