Tag Archives: certification

on oracle requiring course for Java hands on exams

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I learned that Oracle is adding a course requirement to the developer and architect certifications. thanks to this CodeRanch thread.  I’m glad I already completed the SCEA/OCMJEA. For facts and updates see the CodeRanch thread.  The first post is being updated as we learn more about the details.  This blog post is my thoughts on it along with a comparison to other certs.

What does Oracle hope to gain by the change?

The official statement/FAQ says,

Many Oracle certifications require hands-on course attendance as a part of the certification path. The course requirement is being added to these certification paths to bring them in line with Oracle Certification Program’s standards for the levels of certification under which they fall.

Oracle blogged about this for their Oracle exams.  The gist of the blog is that less people take the test with a required course but it cuts out cheaters.

Other possibilities:

  1. It’s a way for Oracle to make more money. (Oracle denies this in the blog)
  2. It makes the certification rarer and more valuable.  (This didn’t work out for Spring – see section below)
  3. It’s a way for Oracle to quietly retire those certifications from “lack of demand” or reinvent them into something else.

Things I find odd:

  1. They aren’t the right courses!  For the architect exam, you can take Intro to Java, Intro to Modeling, JEE development or JEE architecture.  I’ve paraphrased the names to make it easy to see that only one or two are things that apply to an architect.  And all of them are something someone should know before taking the exam.  I wouldn’t have been interested in going to any of those classes as I already know that material and it would have been a waste of time/money.
  2. Oracle doesn’t require a mandatory course for their developer exams.
  3. The Oracle 11g Master exam requires a two day hands on course to pass.  I think this is what discourages cheaters, not the class.  In our world, the equivalent would be a longer exam that has you develop or design something new in person.  Incidentally, the SCJP Plus that Sun didn’t proceed with would have gone in that direction.  (alebeit not at a master level)
  4. On the Oracle side, Oracle has declared that developer exams don’t go in the master category.  The table shows they are all that professional or specialization/expert level.  And no, most of them don’t require training.  So I can be a Peoplesoft Expert without training but not a developer?
  5. An official course makes more sense for a product than development.  (Oracle knows their database better than anyone.)

But Spring requires a course

The SpringSource developer exam (see my comments) has “required” completion of their course since the exam’s inception in 2008.  Then they got rid of the grandfather option and everyone is required to take the course.  Which of course means the exam serves as a final exam for the course and is of significantly less value.  Not the best analogy.

spring 3 certification – about the test

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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

About the test

It really shouldn’t be necessary to put this in a blog post.  But the information is so scattered that it is.  Here’s what is known:

  • 50 questions
  • 90 minutes (it was 88 minutes when I took it, but it is possible they counted the two minutes I spent reading the rules about what can and can’t be shared.)
  • passing score is 76%
  • there is an official study guide
  • there are no official mock exams

That’s it.  That is literally all the information I found about the Core Spring 3 certification.  There is also some information about the 2.5 exam linked from the JavaRanch Spring Certification FAQ page.

Scope of the test

As Dan said in his 2.5 writeup:

Although I am not allowed to comment on the specific questions I can comment on the topics. One of the frustrations that I and many others have, is that there is just no real decent way to simulate this exam from a trusted source like you would with a Sun certification. So you are quite in the dark when it comes to an effective preparation on what is a massive topic. So hopefully the following information might be useful to you.

Following that philosophy, here’s the distribution for Spring 3:

  • Container and test (20)
  • AOP (10)
  • JDBC (3)
  • Transactions (4)
  • Web (2)
  • REST (2)
  • Remoting  (2)
  • Security (2)
  • JMS (2)
  • JMX (2)

The total does come to 50 because the questions were ordered in the same way as on the study guide making it easy to remember.  It could vary of course – this is just what I got.

Types of questions

Each questions has four answer choices.  There were a few types of questions. I note this because one of the few things I thought I knew prior to the exam was that each question has only one correct answer.  This turned out to be incorrect.

  • Select one answer
  • Select X answers
  • Select one or more answers (I don’t like this type where they don’t tell you how many are correct.)
  • Select the one that is not correct (this is ok – this is like “select three”

Most of the questions were fairly high level with a few detailed ones.  It didn’t stray far from the course or study guide which was a pleasant surprise given what I heard about the 2.5 exam.

There was also a question that contained a spelling error.  I was disappointed to see this in a published test; it says something about the quality control process.  I imagine since the Spring 3 test is fairly new, this will get shaken out soon.

Overall impressions

Finally, I’d like to compare my impression of the exam before and after.  I wrote the following before taking the exam.

The funny thing is Gavin [2.5 notes creator] says he doesn’t know what is on the exam because he is a grandfathered candidate and didn’t take the class. Ironically, I did take the class and don’t know what’s on the exam.  The class manual is too easy and doesn’t cover edge cases so clearly isn’t sufficient.  And the skills guru mock exam covered things that weren’t in the Spring 3 objectives and not mentioned in the class.   I’m not sure if he overthought things, the Spring 2.5 exam was harder or I’m still not grasping what is on the exam.  I do note the actual stated 2.5 had more in them such as Hessian/Burlap.

Now that I’ve taken the exam, I can say that the few available materials on the web created a lot more worry about the exam than was necessary.  The course student guide *is* on the level of the exam.  And the mock exams are much harder and contain content that is out of scope.

Spring 2.5 vs 3.0 exam

The Spring 2.5 exam sounds like it was a lot harder than the Spring 3.0 exam.  This is unfortunate in some ways – it means the certification means less.  Of course, if you are a candidate for the 3.0 exam. it is a good thing.  I wonder if the “dumbing down” of the exam has anything to do with ending the grandfathering of candidates.  The 3.0 exam is more like a course review whereas the 2.5 one sounded more like a knowledge of Spring test.  And since one is required to take the class before taking the test, this is most of the studying required.

Previous page: Background Information

Next page: Readings and Resources

spring 3 certification – readings and resources

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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

I tried some other exams that didn’t claim to be mocks. See the week by week section for those. Or for more details about the resources in this table.

Resource Spring Version Cost Comments
The official student guide and lab manual from course 3.0 came with course I think studying this would have been enough to pass (with a low passing score.)
Spring in Action (3rd edition) 3.0 $30/$50 The parts of the book that are already written were enjoyable to read. I learned a lot from them although not necessarily things that were on the test. Some test material was reinforced well though.
Sections from Official Reference Documentation 3.0 $0 Again interesting and I learned a lot, but definitely overkill for the test.
Spring Source’s Sample questions 2.5 $0 I thought these questions were too easy when I first read them. Now I think the level is equivalent to the exam. Even though they are 2.5, the content still applies. They are not multiple choice though.
Gavin Lasnitzki’s study notes 2.5 $0 These are a lot more detailed than the exam. They are faster to read than the official documentation so good for a review.
Skill-guru mock exam #1 3.0 $0.99 It’s the best we have, but keep in mind it is a lot harder than the real exam and contains material that is out of scope. See Skills Guru section for more detail.
Skill-guru mock exam #2 3.0 $0.99 See comments for exam #1. I felt more questions were out of scope in this exam.
BlackBeltFactory’s mock exam 3.0 contribution point based I led the creation of this exam as I was studying. It is significantly harder than the real exam. At the time of this blog post, it is in public beta state. Now released.
Jeanne Boyarsky’s study notes 3.0 $0 I wrote them so I’m biased.

I’ve also read some other Spring books in the past for older versions of Spring.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of “Spring in Action” exchange for writing a review of the book when it prints. I am also a volunteer administrator at BlackBeltFactory from when I was active in the early days. This means I have thousands of contribution points and didn’t have to think about the cost when taking exams.

Previous page: About the test

Next page: My study plan