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Sun Certified Web Component Developer for J2EE

Success Stories

S.No Author Score Date

1. S.M.Rahman 93% June 16, 2003
2. Rajat Singla 96% Sep 07, 2001

SCWCD Success Story by S.M.Rahman

Hello All,

I write this letter with great pleasure of scoring 93% in SCWCD. I would like to share
my experiences with you all which I had experienced in the due course of my
preparation towards this exam.

I had spent most of my time in collecting information regarding exam, objectives,

mocks and how to prepare, what topics carry greater importance and a few more
things. This experience of mine has led me to build this site which aims at providing
valuable information and free downloadable mock exams which run on simulator to
get actual exam feel.

Though I have two years experience in Servlets, JSP, Java Beans and tag libra ries,
preparing for the exam had been a complete new experience. At first, my intension
was to score around 80- 85% because I cannot accommodate more time for
preparation, but surprisingly I got 93% with the planned study and effort I had put
in preparation. Here are some of the important points which I had observed during
my preparation and believe that these may help you in preparing for SCWCD in a
better way.

Here is my success story,

First of all, I had thoroughly understood the exam objectives. I had carefully read the
exam objectives and found out what each objective expects from the examinee.
SCWCD Exam Prep by Marty Hall (pdf) helps you what exactly you have to prepare
for each objective.

Let me tell you all one thing, SCWCD is comparatively easier than SCJP, and you will
usually not get any tricky questions as you would normally find in SCJP.

Now, I tell you the important tasks I did for the preparation.

Servlets and JSP specifications are very important, I read them twice by comparing
with objectives.

Servlets and JSP API. Where you need to know about interfaces, abstract classes,
listeners, exceptions and important methods. For example, there is a possibility of
getting a question asking which of the following are valid methods, by specifying
class name and method name. Here you have to find the exact method and class.
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I had followed the SCWCD Exam Study Kit by Deshmukh and Malavia, Manning
Publications, which I could gladly recommend to you all. The book has covered all
the objectives of the exam.

The chapters in the book are organized based on the objectives of the exam and
every chapter contains questions at the end covering the chapter. These will help
you to better understand the concepts and objectives..

I had managed to have a good practice session of mock exams from Exam kit CD,
and Eduarado Cobian, Milk, Poddar and from JDiscuss. Thanks to all of them.

I would also like to add that I was a silent participant of Javaranch, and I use to read
all the postings on SCWCD. This is very important part of my preparation. I credit
my success to Java Ranch. If you are not a member, please let this be the first on
your To- Do list.

Identify frequently recurring questions from the mocks; this is very easy if you
compare the questions with the objectives. For instance, if you make a close
observation you could find a few questions on how to send status code to client, how
to store log messages and so on.

I had used Jakarta Tomcat for testing samples while preparation. Working samples
on Servlets and JSP Concepts, Listeners, Tag libraries and Java Beans (bean tag)
improves your confident, and lets you memorize methods and classes without much
of your extra efforts.

I honestly opine that after so much of careful and cautious preparation I had not felt
the need of commercial mock exams. But trying them is also not a bad idea. If you
are new to Servlets and JSP and had never worked on them before, then you may
opt for commercial mock exams too.

Scoring around 80% is easy enough if you could follow the exam objectives
correctly. To score above 80% needs extensive preparation on Tag libraries, DTDs,
and Design patterns which could probably take your scores over 90%.

Remember that you should also be well versed with the basics of Java Beans though
it is not specially mentioned in the objectives. For example, one of the basic rules of
Java Beans is that it should have a default constructor; you will be given a code of
Java Bean which doesn't have a default constructor, and a JSP code which uses the
bean using userBean tag. You will be asked the output generated by the JSP. There
may be possibility of questions in the similar fashion which tests the basics of Java
Beans on other side.

Another important thing is about web.xml. It is highly recommended that you have a
good knowledge of DTD tags. This is a must. The chances of questions based on this
topic are high. You may be asked to answer "Which of the following is mandatory for
Tag element?" Tag library definitions, Servlet mapping, exceptions definitions, etc..
If you start concentrating on these things from the beginning of your preparation,
you would remember them with ease. You can expect 2 to 3 questions from this
topic.

Next is about Design Patterns, I had 4 questions from this topic in my exam and had
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also observed that this is the average number of questions on this topic. Exam kit
has good explanations about design patterns and is sufficient for the exam. You can
find links to design patterns at Links page.

I also have a guessing on the number of questions from each objective. Here they
are:

The Servlet Model 10

The Structure and Deployment of Modern Servlet Web Applications 4
The Servlet Container Model 5
Designing and Developing Servlets to Handle Server-Side Exceptions 3
Designing and Developing Servlets Using Session Management 3
Designing and Developing Secure Web Applications 3
Designing and Developing Thread-Safe Servlets 2
The JSP Model 10
Designing and Developing Reusable Web Components 2
Designing and Developing JSPs Using JavaBeans 5
Desinging and Developing JSPs Using Custom Tags 3
Designing and Developing A Custom Tag Library 5
Design Patterns for Web Applications 4

With this experience and knowledge I had prepared SCWCD mock exam. I
believe that this would be of great use to you all. You can download from this site
at JPilotStore. You can also find important links at Links page.

I sincerely invite all your queries. Please feel free to post queries on this column.

Submit more you require knowing in Success Stories.

Reminder: Don't forget to post your success story for helping others.

With Best Wishes,

S.M.Rahman
SCJP, SCWCD.

Last Updated : Aug 12, 2003.

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SCWCD Success Story by Rajat Singla

Dear All,

I am too much happy today, on the TOP OF THE WORLD. Met my and all of yours
expectations. Scored 96%.

Thanks Thanks a lot for your wishes and help in answering my questions. It really
helped.

As asked by ashik, i would be happy to assist anyone preparing for scwcd. My

personal

email id is: rajat_singla@rediffmail.com.

Here is my success story:

First of all i would like to tell everyone that SCWCD is SIMPLER than SCJP. There are
not

much trick involved in it. The most important points for success from my experience:

1.) SPECS (JSP1.2 and Servlets 1.3) are MUST

2.) Knowledge of DTD's is highly important
3.) Taglibraries objectives can take your score from low to very high.

Here are the resources i used:

a.) Gone thru the specs twice :

http://java.jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/first/jsr053/index.html. It covers most of the
areas.
b.) For design patterns: http://java.sun.com/j2ee/blueprints/design_patterns/index.html. All
the questions were like, applying which design pattern given a scenario. Thus go thru
the j2ee design patterns.. thoroughly. Some people said that they faced questions
from design pattenrs apart from the ones in objectives.
c.) Professional JSP by wrox is a great book and Java Servlets by o'rielly is great.
d.) I practiced on J2EE server. But tomcat is even better.
e.) Security and Listeners topic needs little hard work.. generally people dont use
much in practice atleast for me.
f.) scwcdwhiz tool at www.whizlabs.com/jwhiz was a great help. It met my expectations.
The best part i liked was, the proportion and style of questions almost matched the
actual exam.

And guys as i told earlier, like scjp you dont need unlimited number of mock exams
for practice. I gave so many when i cleared scjp. May be like scjp, before oct'2000
when the pattern got changed, the exam was easy checking mostly on syntax.
Similarly currently SCWCD is a simlpler one. May be in near future some pattern gets
changed and becomes tougher. May be its sun strategy to first create the market
with comaparatively easier exa m

I am not able to recollect all questions but following is the rough proportion of
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questions, im not 100% sure

Design patterns : 4
Security :3
Listeners :5
JSP basics: 8
Servlet basics : 9
reusable componets : 2
javabeans in jsp :3
taglibs (obj 11+12) : 8
structure and deployment of webapp: 3
server side expectations: 3
session : not able to recall
therad safe: not able to recall

It seems im still missing some questions.. but above is the rough estimation

One important thing unlike scjp, there were many (around 6- 7) fill in the blanks
questions asking you to type the method/class/interface name. But more or less
there was no ambiguity. Got practice duing scwcdwhiz mocks.

Similar to scjp, you will have enuf time to complete the test.

I would suggest all of you to MUST REVISE DTD's before the exam. It WILL Improve
your score.

Another good thing for me: getting raise in my salary on this success. So once again
i thank you all for the kind help and support.

Guys, YOU CAN CRACK SCWCD COOLLY. Its more of planning job. Very imortant to
put right amount of efforst in right direction.

Going out for the party. Will come back and surely write more.Infact i've got great
attachment with web components and would like to continue taking part at this great
place for sharing.

ALL THE BEST TO ALL OF MY FRIENDS

rajat

Rajat Singla
ranch hand
Member # 15475
posted September 07, 2001 05:58 AM
URL http://saloon.javaranch.com/cgi-
bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=18&t=000123