Author Archives: Jeanne Boyarsky

Spring 3 Certification Week by Week

Posted on by
1

Table of contents for the Spring 3 certification series of posts:

  1. Jeanne’s core spring 3 certification experiences (Background information)
  2. About the test (includes Scope of the test and Spring 2.5 vs 3.0 exam)
  3. What did I read and how were the resources I tried
  4. My study plan
  5. Skills guru mock exam
  6. What I would recommend as a study plan

My study plan

Unlike the SCEA, I actually followed most of my plan. I spent about 10-15 hours a week on this. Here’s what happened: [note this is a list of what I did and not what is good to do; I definitely overstudied. See the “What I would recommend as a study plan” section for what I actually recommend you do. I’ve made the items with the least value for the test in pink and italics. I went on some tangents. Spring even gives the advice to explore and follow one’s curiosity. I certainly did that, but it was for general learning and didn’t help at all for the test.

  1. Week 1
    • Took the four day course
    • Started creating my Spring 3 certification study notes.
    • I made sure could answer all questions in the official Spring 3 study guide immediately after the course – at least on a high level. I didn’t know them all by heart, especially for the later sections, but at least they sounded familiar.
    • Decided to take the test a month after the class and create study plan.
    • Took BlackBeltFactory JDBC exam. Some of the questions are old and many went beyond the scope of the certification. I tried closed book and open book. It provided me with a nice guided tour of the JavaDocs.
  2. Week 2
  3. Week 3
    • Re-read the class student guide
    • Followed up about exam voucher which did not come automatically.
    • Received voucher after following up and registered for Pearson Vue account. It takes up to 24 hours to activate an account – about 12 hours in my case. Pearson Vue picks your user id which ensures I will never remember it. Thanks Pearson. <sarcasm>
    • Noted the voucher expires in January. This is just under 6 months. I was under the impression we had a year!
    • Registered for the exam.
    • Recreated the instructor’s example to remember full lifecycle with details (@PostConstruct vs init-method, and InitializingBean etc). This made it easier for me to remember.
    • Went through thru Spring 2.5 “sample questions” (not multiple choice and doesn’t cover all topics.) I can’t tell how did because some questions you can’t tell what they are getting at. The material wasn’t surprising for container, AOP, JDBC and Transactions. I noted some have nothing to do with Spring like what is ACID. They don’t cover all the topics. At first, I thought the questions were incredibly easy and useless for the exam. In hindsight, they were at a good level.
    • Took Skills-Guru Mock exam #2. Again, see the skills guru section. I got a 62% on my first attempt at this one. Again it worried me for no reason.
    • Started creating a BlackBeltFactory Spring 3 certification exam.
    • Completed the labs that we didn’t cover in class. This didn’t help for the exam, but I wanted to do it anyway.
    • Retook the BlackBeltFactory exams open books to pass.
    • Read the official Spring reference guide chapters 1-7 and 9-12. (8 is on the old way of doing AOP.) I was surprised at how little this helped for the exam given how vital it sounded for the Spring 2.5 exam.
    • Skimmed Gavin’s 2.5 study notes. These are the author’s guess as to what is on the exam. He was a grandfathered candidate and did not take the class. I’m not sure if the notes are so detailed/involved because he was grandfathered or because the 2.5 exam was significantly harder. Either way, don’t let the exam scare you any more than you let the Skills-Guru mocks do!
  4. Week 4
    • Added a lot of BlackBeltFactory questions to think through each topic. It’s a learning style that I like and helpful to others. I also added the Spring 3 category to a lot of relevant existing questions getting me to think about more edge cases. The BlackBeltFactory admits to being significantly harder than the real exam.
    • Read Spring reference guide chapters 13, 15, 19-22. (14 is on O/X, 16-18 more advanced web)
    • Read chapters 9-10 in Spring in Action (3rd edition.) All of this material was too advanced for the test. Note: chapters 11-14 are excluded from what I read because they aren’t published yet. I’m reading the chapters as they come out through MEAP (Manning Early Access Program.)
    • Retook both Skills-Guru exams because I was still thinking they were the level of difficulty of the exam.
  5. Week 4 and a half (I took the test on a Thursday so this would be Monday-Thursday)
    • I felt ready at this point – even given that I thought the exam was much harder. I was still reviewing so I didn’t lose momentum and forget the obscure things that don’t come up in real life. Plus I didn’t want to “just barely fail” because of something silly. It was maddening not having a sense for the level of detail for questions on the the test. Would it be so terrible for Spring Source to provide 5 sample multiple choice questions?
    • Took beta test a few times at BlackBeltFactory (a lot are questions I wrote, but it was a good review – like flash cards). Got between 88% and 100% on all attempts.
    • Re-read my study notes.
    • Review Spring’s 2.5 sample question list to make sure I know everything on it.
    • Took skills guru test one more time – this time took exam 2 first so end with exam 1 (and more confidence.) I got 92% on test 2 and 88% on second test. While this did track well to my real exam score, I had seen the skills guru questions multiple times at this point.
    • Skimmed class student guide one more time

Previous page: What did I read and how were the resources I tried

Next page: Skills guru mock exam

jeanne’s core spring 3 certification experiences

Posted on by
85

Today I passed the Core Spring 3 certification exam with a score of 92%.  This blog entry is similar to Jeanne’s SCEA part 1 experiences – a place to share all the information about the process.  For SCEA, it was an place to weed through all the information out there and organize it a bit.  For Spring, it is the opposite.  There is an information shortage out there.  Not much is written up and most of what is out there goes with the 2.5 version of the exam.  As a result, this entry is much longer and has been split into a series of posts.

  1. Background information
  2. About the test (includes Scope of the test and Spring 2.5 vs 3.0 exam)
  3. What did I read and how were the resources I tried
  4. My study plan
  5. Skills guru mock exam
  6. What I would recommend as a study plan

Background information

I took the Core Spring class the week of July 20th.  It comes with one free attempt at the test.  Retakes are $150.  Luckily, I didn’t need a retake.  Based on what I had heard about the 2.5 test, it went deeper than the course and required a lot of studying.  As a result, I decided to wait a month from taking the course before taking the test.  Now that I know what the test is about, I know I could have taken it a week or two earlier.  Or even earlier if the voucher arrived sooner.

In late 2013, Jakub Staš added noted some changes in the exam.

Update May 2017: no longer need to take a class to take the exam

Next page: About the test

Note to those who are thinking of asking for a copy of the class materials:

The Core Spring course material is copyrighted by Spring Source. I cannot share it with others.  Please do not waste your time e-mailing me to request them.

jeanne’s SCEA 5 part 1 experiences

Posted on by
48

Six weeks ago, I decided to take the SCEA 5 (Sun Certified Enterprise Architect) exam.  Today I passed part one with a score 87%.

(See part 2 and 3 notes as well)

Note: I did not pay for any mock exams.  I’m sure I would have scored above 90% had I done so.  I don’t think paying money for a higher passing score is worth it.  That isn’t learning for the sake of learning.  It is learning specifically for a test.

Since people at JavaRanch‘s SCEA forum often ask how one studied and about experiences, I decided to blog about it.

Deciding to take the test

The first thing I did was make sure the SCEA was not going away.  After all, who wants to be one of the last people to take the test before Oracle changes things?  As you can see in What’s next for Sun certifications now that Oracle is in charge? The SCEA looks quite stable and likely to continue.

While I’ve read the SCJP book, I’ve never taken the exam.  Multiple choice exams based on minutia that one doesn’t encounter in real life isn’t high on my list of things to do.  The SCEA doesn’t have the SCJP as a pre-requisite and emphasized the practical over trick questions and memorization so I decided to go for it.  Granted it is Sun’s view of the world so Spring and the like don’t fit it, but I find it a lot more relevant that the other exams.

My study plan

My plan was a wee bit vague.  I intended to get the study guide, see what was involved, study/practice as needed and register for the test.  I planned to spend 5-10 hours a week on this.  (I probably did this half the weeks.)  Here’s what actually happened:  [note this is a list of what I did and not what is good to do; see the next section for comments on the resources]

  1. Week 0
    • Decided want to take SCEA.  (My employer thinks it would be nice for people to get certified.  I’ve thought about doing so before, but this provided the final motivation to actually go for it.)
    • Convinced myself it is ok to do shortly before Oracle changes things because the SCEA looks intact.
  2. Week 1
    • Did sample questions to see where I stand.  (I copy/pasted the questions to notepad and removed the (*) next to the correct answers since they aren’t in a form one can use.  It still takes discipline to cheat, but I wanted it as a benchmark.  I got 5 or 6 out of 8 correct.  One of the answers was obviously incorrect.)  While this is (barely) above the passing score, I want to feel more confident before spending money to take the exam.  Decided if I read the SCEA book and practice some, I’ll be more reliably above it.
    • Ordered “Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java EE Study Guide“.
  3. Week 2
    • The only thing I did until the book came (Thursday) was look where the testing centers are me.
    • Once the book came, I read the first 5 chapters.  I was surprised by how easy the content was.  I guess this is because I already serve as an architect in some capacity.  This is good; I’ll be able to take Part 1 earlier than expected.
  4. Week 3
    • Registered for exam – since it doesn’t look overly difficult, I decided to take it soon.  I didn’t want to take in July 4th weekend and happened to have a day off work July 16th anyway, so I decided to go with July 16th.
    • Read remainder of book.
    • I had/was fighting off a cold part of the week so didn’t get much done.
    • The book contains sample questions that are supposed to be the level of difficultly of the exam.  (They seemed too easy, but turned out to be correct about the level of difficulty.)  Looked at scores to see how I am doing.  My scores for the chapters were 100%, 50%, 85%, 85%, 67%, 75%.  Some of the questions are not included in this percentage because I saw the answer before choosing one.  It was difficult to cover up the answers well.
  5. Week 4
    • Identified the areas I want to get stronger at:
      1. Make sure I can identify the design pattern names from descriptions.  While I am familiar with all the patterns, I often look them up in real life.
      2. Web Services – I know them in the capacity I have used them , but not as extensively as some of the other content.
    • Made flash cards for the design pattern names.  There are a few that have similar sounding descriptions and I wanted to make sure I could tell them apart.  After making the cards, it turned out I know almost all of them.  I imagine the act of making the cards did that.
  6. Week 5
    • Take free JavaBeat mock exams online to practice.  These were for the SCEA 4 exam, but interesting so I kept going.  Plus they gave me practice taking multiple choice closed book exams; a skill I haven’t used since college.
    • JavaBeat exams showed I need to review design patterns more didn’t do much this week though.  It was just too hot in New York City to think!
  7. Week 6
    • Reviewed the questions I got wrong so they are top of the mind
    • Looked at references from people in the SCEA forum at JavaRanch
    • Remind self not to read into questions (Sun doesn’t seem to think a web app is more secure than a fat client despite the logic being only on the server)
    • JavaChamp mock exam – got low score, but doesn’t tell how many correct answers there all the time so you have to guess how much to think about each question.
  8. The night before
  9. Take the test!

How were the resources I tried or read about?

Resource Cost Tried? Comments
Cade & Sheil Study Guide $40 Yes I relied on it heavily.  See my review on Amazon (which should be up within a day or two for more details.)
Whizlab Mock Trial free Yes 15 questions.  (got 93% on this which is slightly higher than real exam.  others have noted larger differences for Whizlab being easier.)  Satisfied with quality.
Whizlab Mock $100 No n/a – didn’t need extra help passing exam
Epractice Mock Trial free No I wanted to try this but you need a “free license key that gets e-mailed immediately” and it never came.
Epractice Mock $80 No n/a – didn’t need extra help passing exam
Sun’s epractice exam $65 No 120 SCEA 5 questions from Sun

n/a – didn’t need extra help passing exam
JavaBeat SCEA questions free Yes this is NOT for the SCEA 5 exam.  I found the design patterns and scenario questions to be good practice and comparable though.
About.com SCEA questions free Yes this is NOT for the SCEA 5 exam.  I found the design patterns and scenario questions to be good practice and comparable though.
JavaChamp Express Exam free Yes 20 question sample exam

Remember the SCEA 4 exam is quite different and study materials for it should only be used selectively.

What did I read?

Another thing people at JavaRanch typically state is what they read for the exam.  I really only read the Cade & Sheil study guide because so much of the content sounded familiar.  Prior to even thinking about taking the exam I have read many books including:

  1. EJB 3 in Action – see my review at JavaRanch from 2007
  2. Core Java Server Faces – see my review at JavaRanch from 2004
  3. JEE 5 tutorial – see my review at JavaRanch from 2006
  4. Other books further in the past including Gang of Four, Core J2EE Patterns, Design Patterns, etc

My impressions of the exam

  • I had a ton of time.  I completed pass #1 in 45 minutes.  I wrote down on paper which ones I wasn’t 100% sure of.  After pass 1, I calculated the total and I already had more 60% of the questions correct.  I then spent another 25 minutes on pass 2 thinking about the ones I wasn’t sure of or where more complicated.  Caveat: In school, I always finished tests with a load of extra time.  This just means the SCEA was consistent with other exams.
  • I dislike that you can’t review drag and drop questions.
  • Two of the questions I got wrong were because I didn’t realize they were in scope of the test – Java Cryptography Architecture and CORBA.
  • The questions were not tricky.  Subjective maybe, but not tricky.
  • I think this is one of those exams where having more experience hurts you a bit because you read into the questions.  For example, I know that a three tier app is more secure than a two tier app because you aren’t executing business logic on the client.  Sun disagrees.  I know because it is Cade’s book.  I imagine there are other things like that where the experience I have clashes with the test.
  • Most of the questions were high level.  There was only one I can recall that was at the level of what API/class name you would use and it was one every enterprise developer should know.
  • My section scores confirm these impressions.  I got 100% on web tier, applicability of JEE and Patterns.  I got 75% on Security (which would be the cryptography question), 66% on application design concepts and principles (which is only one wrong), 83% on integration and messaging (CORBA plus legitimate mistakes) and 87% on common architectures and business tier technologies (the two areas I suspect real world experience clashed.)

All in all, it was interesting and I felt the test was fair.