How to become a ZCE?
Becoming a ZCE is not a difficult process. Few people in zend’s yellow pages actually mean people are not interested in exam and less people are writing comparing to Sun/Microsoft/Oracle. Anyone can become ZCE if they ‘prepare’ correctly. Zend exam, tests the candidate’s knowledge on various topics of PHP, both core language features and key extensions.( http://www.zend.com/services/certification/php-5-certification/)
Key facts about the exam:
Zend exam checks your knowledge on PHP rather than your knowledge on programming, though the official website says like that, there are questions that require logical thinking. Don’t forget to read Zend’s PHP exam faq. You’ll key information such as exam covers PHP version 5.1
MySqli, SQLite will include in the exam, though the syllabus says only standard SQL will be covered.
Exam checks the sound working knowledge of core PHP (But I cracked it with 90% reading & 10% practising). Most of the time, you’ll be a given a code snippet and need to find the bug, output, etc. So get ready to make your hands dirty with a good PHP IDE
There is no mark or grade for the exam. Just a PASS/FAIL based on the questions answered. Based on reply from Zend for a clarification, I even suspect there should be different weight for each questions
The questions will not be evenly distributed among the syllabus and some chapters have more ‘weightage’ than others. For eg, you may get more questions from OOP than SOAP
Failing in single topic, will not make you FAIL in ZCE as whole.
The Official Zend Certification Study guide will not cover the entire syllabus. Of course, if you read this book alone, I’m sorry you are wasting your money. The book just gives you an idea about syllabus, just a big syllabus book.(The book didn’t include even a single about PDO or SQLite)
References:
PHP Manual – Language reference (Don’t miss even a single word in this section) and function reference (Just have a look at all the function and give deep look at commonly used functions). For eg, exam may include a objective type options as string_split & str_split so you may need to differentiate ‘fake one’ from original
PHP 5 Certification Study Guide(2nd edition might have less typo, get it, if you can)
This is the official study guide and you should read it whether you like it or not
PHP.in.a.Nutshell.Oct.2005
This book provides precise info about each topic of PHP, especially output buffering & file management
PHP Architect Guide to PHP Design Patterns 2005
Just get to know about what are the design patterns available, though you don’t need to know how to implement each, but you should be identify each pattern with the code snippet given
Sklar – Learning PHP5 (O’Reilly)
Form, functions & arrays are good to read and the entire book would be
PHP5 Recipes – A Problem-Solution Approach (2005)
PHP Cookbook, 2nd Edition (2006)
Both cook books provide good recipes to practice, I use Oreilly’s cookbook extensively
Apress.Beginning.PHP.and.MySQL.3rd.Edition.2008
(A book that touches almost every topic in PHP and in the exam too, can be used as quick ref)
Apress.Pro.PHP.XML.and.Web.Services.Mar.2006
(I thought I should read this, the day before exam, unfortunately, I got no time.)
Apress.Pro.PHP.Patterns.Frameworks.Testing.and.More(2008)
(good intro to OOP, Standard PHP Library(Iterators, ArrayAccess)
Essential PHP Security (2005)
–extremely essential book. Never miss a single line. It’ll pay back both in exam point of view & knowledge point view
Pro PHP Security – Apress – If u r more interested in security
Hacker Web Exploitation Uncovered (2005) – If you are interested in breaking, others’
Additional Reference:
Bruce.Eckel.Thinking.In.Java.4th.Edition.Dec.2007.eBook-BBL
Chapter – 1 – an excellent intro to theoretical OOP
Addison.WesleyCore.Web.Application.Development.with.PHP.and.MySQL.Sep.2005
PHP and MySQL web development 4th Ed.2009
About Mock Exam:
Copy & paste exam questions and make a research later on each question in mock.
I purchased 10 exam practice test pack along with my friend, but I passed in the very first exam itself and got excellent in 3rd mock exam and exam result prejudge the exam to schedule too early than actually it should be and made me to feel in the centre that I’d have ‘prepared’ well. So don’t be cheated with mock exam, though you must need it before taking the exam.
Those who are from computer stream will be benefited with their academic knowledge (actually, my exam result was highly influence by C++ & academic OOP) and they can easily build new knowledge from their existing one. Non-computer stream guys need to do a slight hard work to keep things smooth (Of course, the exam itself is for those who are from non-computer streams to prove their ability to their employers.)
Personal exp.: Mock exams are direct questions & simple logic rather than real exam that requires practical exposure and deep understanding of the language
How to prepare?
Sincere study – simply no substitute. Share your knowledge with others and make a collaborative study
Give importance to minor details-eg-get to know about what print will return and what will if it has been combined with another string or added with quoted number.
Practice programs, especially the ones related to strings, arrays, domxml & oops. Unless otherwise you know how OOP has been implemented in PHP4 & PHP5, you’ll not be able to tell the difference between two by just seeing the code in PHP 4 vs PHP 5, for eg.
Check you readiness with mock exam, till you get 3 excellent grades to save your money
Professional guess – (method of elimination, checking for verbal clues, believing ‘none of the above’ is genuine answered, if you got a question that you have never come across. Yes, there is not –ve pts. Exploit it)
In the exam centre:
Make sure that you two form of pho identify
Read & understand the question. Don’t get fooled by the word! The method named ‘generate_even’ doesn’t need to be generating even nos.
Answer all the question ( no –ve marks)
Mark for review, if a particular question takes time
**Remove** mark for review before ending the exam as such questions will be evaluated as wrong. One ZCE shared this in his blog
Optional:
Speed reading:
Use the proven tools such as EyeQ/Acereader to speed up your reading and hence learning
Note: please do not ask the exact questions asked in the exam and don’t put me in a critical situation as revealing questions may invalidate my certification and I have agreed not to do so :D. Thanks for understanding
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