I am ZCE and so can you!

[Kudose]

So after taking 6 practice exams and passing them all with varying results, I decided the best way to prepare for the exam was to take it and study on the failed areas.

Well, I passed the 70 question exam in 31 minutes due to 1 or 2 trick questions.

IMHO, they could have made it a bit harder. There were no questions like "What does `echo NULL + 0x20` display?" It was mainly over language constructs, flow and output. It was about 50/50 with OOP. Most of the OOP questions dealt with XML (SimpleXML, DOM, etc) and PDO. Not a single MySQL question and only one MySQLi quetion, which isn't too surprising since MySQLi is a PHP5 thing.

If you're looking to pass the exam and know most things about general PHP (OOP, references, declarations, type hinting, casting, etc...), study XML parsing, PDO and MySQLi and you should pass without issues.

So my lads, fear not the ZCE exam, make the ZCE exam fear you!

[laserlight]

There were no questions like "What does `echo NULL + 0x20` display?" It was mainly over language constructs, flow and output.
In a way, that is good, because it shows that the question setters are not so concerned about uncommon details that can easily be verified by a competent programmer.

I do not intend to take any such certification exams until my last year of study, where I may prepare for and take the SCJP exam at a subsidised rate (just because it is subsidised :p), and also take the ZCE if I judge that PHP would still be useful for me after 2010.

[Kudose]

Sheesh. I know you're a PHP and C/C++ wiz, I didn't know you were doing Java as well. Kudos to you and good luck!

[scrupul0us]

what happens after 2010?

[bradgrafelman]

I'm guessing he will have graduated and be looking for a job.

[Jason Batten]

S... There were no questions like "What does `echo NULL + 0x20` display?"...

:o wtf?

0x20... nope... no no... no... NOPE :confused:

[NogDog]

0x20 = hexadecimal 20 = 32 decimal

[Jason Batten]

and why would anyone want to echo that, seriously?

[Kudose]

I dunno. Bit shifting wasn't included either.

[bradgrafelman]

Or bit packing?

[Kudose]

Let me rephrase my last statement.

There were no questions involving bitwise operators.

[Jason Batten]

:D cool

Might take the test sooner

[bpat1434]

yeah, I haven't been impressed by Zend's certification test. It seems almost "too" standardized. I'm all about testing knowledge; however, if PHP doesn't follow a convention of searching that the needle comes before the haystack (or vice versa) then why should we be required to know it? Especially when a quick call to php.net can find us the answer? I'd be more interested in "Here's an example scenario, give us some example code" type of test which would have to be read, and evaluated by someone. Yes, the test would totally suck because you wouldn't have results for a couple months probably; however, at least then you have the opportunity stretch your knowledge and show them your coding, rather than answering a multiple choice question.

Not to mention you an BS an essay question, you can't BS a multi-choice question ;)