Certification for WEB COMPONENT DEVELOPER FOR J2EE[tm]

Question

Hi all,
I'm thinking of getting certified as a
WEB COMPONENT DEVELOPER FOR J2EE[tm] PLATFORM.
What is your experience? How do I prepare best for the exam?
Any book / tutorial particulary useful?
Thanks for your input!
Anja

Answer 1

For what its worth, I found this the easiest of the certifications (compared to Programmer and Developer). My 2 cents of advice includes:
- Use the Sun objectives as the driver for your study. Review the objectives thoroughly and make detailed notes by section. http://www.javaranch.com/scwcdlinks.jsp has some good examples of this (plus a lot of other useful stuff). The exam is a bit of a memory test - you need to know details of the deployment descriptor, the taglib definition, listeners, the API etc.
- Take the time to read the servlet and JSP specifications. Although on first sight these are large documents, much of them is reference material and they can be read in a couple of hours. They will help in making the detailed notes.
- Go over the servlet API for the key methods.
- If you've not been working with servlet/JSP technologies, read a good book on servlets / JSPs for general background.
- Try a few mock tests, although there are far fewer available than for JCP. Avoid the ones that charge a fee - I found them less than helpful.
- This is probably just me, but be careful if you book the test via the web. I did just that, and when I turned up at the test center they had never heard of me. Follow-up with a phone call to the actual center to ensure that they are expecting you.
Good Luck!