spring exams

The current Spring exams are based on Spring 2.0. Is this accurate or was that just when the original questions were created?

This came up on JavaRanch last month.

I must tell that I don't know and that I doubt these have been updated recently.

Ok. I took a look and it looks like Spring 2 since I don't see annotations. Plus one of the objectives says "Configure the bean scope with both Spring v1 and v2 syntaxes." Spring 1 is really old! This makes sense if that's when they were written. If I wanted to add Spring 3 questions, I'm wondering what to do.

I suspect the really old questions have been purged, but not the objectives.

I've e-mailed the exam leaders a link to this thread to get some thoughts. You have a unique opportunity here with the Spring exam. There are only two practice exams being cited for the Spring cert exam. Skills guru and here. As more people switch to the Spring 3 exam, the BlackBeltFactory one decreases in value.

Jeanne,

I think that the Spring exams are based on Spring 2.X and 1.X because when they were created the current version are 2.X. We can update the exams objectives and purge the very old questions of Spring 1.X.

--
Julio

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 23/07/2010 01:12:53

Julio Cesar Damasceno wrote:Jeanne,I think that the Spring exams are based on Spring 2.X and 1.X because when they were created the current version are 2.X.

I can only confirm this.

Julio Cesar Damasceno wrote:We can update the exams objectives and purge the very old questions of Spring 1.X.

I believe we should also ideally browse the 2.x questions and update them when required. If so, it's potentially going to be a tough work.

What's the process in such a case? Shouldn't we rather deprecate the 1.x-2.x exam and start a new exam for Spring 3.x, recreating the questions that are still valid in this one ?

What do you think?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 23/07/2010 02:32:12

Why not create a new exam called Spring 3? There are also exam for "EJB 2 - Basic" and "EJB 3 Basic" etc.

I think that we should put some effort in the "Spring Core - Fundamentals" exam.
It's already annotation ready.

Then, I'd create a new exam being a mock for the SCF (Spring cerification).
http://www.springsource.com/files/core-spring-3.0-certification-study-guide.pdf

The question I have is if we should create one big SCF mock exam or one little exam per topic (Core, AOP, Data Access transactions, MVC REST, advanced)?
Another question: should we only allow SCF users to contribute this mock exam?

I would let the older exams deprecate themselves with time.

Tasks to do:
1- go through the objectives of "Spring Core - Fundamentals" and check they are still in sync with the course (ask me an access to the course). i.e. I think MessageSource has been removed from the course.
2- give your opinion on splitting the SCF exam.
3- create the mock exam(s)

Any volounteer?

John Rizzo wrote:2- give your opinion on splitting the SCF exam.

Yes for the split.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 04/08/2010 21:59:49

I can lead a Spring 3 exam if you like. As I'm currently studying for the exam it is relevant. (If it is done soon. After I take the exam, my interest might lessen.) It's also a good way to make sure I think about the edge cases.

I think creating a single mock exam for Spring 3 is good rather than a lot of topical ones. Questions can belong to multiple exams so we can add the good questions from the old exams to it to quickly get content.

I also think having one mock exam related to the cert objectives is good. There's a shortage of mock exams out there so having it in one place is helpful. In the future, if there is a lot of content for subcategories, we can always revisit making smaller exams too.

ps - I didn't get e-mail notification on this thread. I'll assume that was a fluke.

Started new thread for Spring 3 Certification exam:
http://www.blackbeltfactory.com/forum/posts/list/0/429.page#2179

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 05/08/2010 01:50:57

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:I think creating a single mock exam for Spring 3 is good rather than a lot of topical ones. Questions can belong to multiple exams so we can add the good questions from the old exams to it to quickly get content.

I was suggesting multiple exams for maintenance reasons: when a new versions of Spring is released, not everything is changed. It's usually some changes that apply to specific parts of the framework.
But if you propose to lead this new exam, of course it's better if it's made the way you're more comfortable.

True. We can still update just the subcategories that have changed though. Or better create a new exam for what is new "upgrade exam" type concept and then merge those questions into the main exam.

And I'm still not getting e-mail notifications. I even tried turning it off and back on. Oh well. Will remember to visit site manually to find out about updates to my threads.