Category Archives: Spring Certification

Spring Professional Certification Exam

With Spring Framework gaining recognition day by day, getting certified will be one of the most valuable credentials in Java.

Can I write this exam?

One of the pre-requisites to write this exam is to have a training taken from SpringSource on Core Spring. If that’s the case, why should we have a book which also aims at helping readers to prepare for SpringSource Certification? Earlier there was an alternative which is called “Grandfathered” candidate, whereby an individual having adequate Proficiency evaluated by SpringSource could by-pass the training and get the exam voucher. While writing this book, I could read from SpringSource website that this is no longer applicable. Even after the training I feel there are so much required to actually pass the exam and get good score in the certification. The class manual is too easy and doesn’t cover edge cases so clearly isn’t sufficient. This book also goes into details of each objectives on which the exam is based.

How many questions?

There are a total of 50 questions to be answered. The questions are organized by subject areas detailed in the exam certification study guide provided by SpringSource.

Following that philosophy, here’s the distribution for Spring 3 as per Jeanne Boyarsky’s Spring 3.X Certification Experiences (http://www.selikoff.net/2010/08/20/jeannes-core-spring-3-certification-experiences/):

  • Container and test (20)
  • AOP (10)
  • JDBC (3)
  • Transactions (4)
  • Web (2)
  • REST (2)
  • Remoting  (2)
  • Security (2)
  • JMS (2)
  • JMX (2)

How much time do I get to write this exam?

You get total of 90 minutes to complete the exam, even reading the rules. Most people wont find this a problem, because usually these are not tricky, long or complicated.

How are the questions like?

The questions are aimed at testing the candidate’s depth and the actual working knowledge in Spring Framework. Each question has four answer choices. Even though it is multiple choices, it cannot be thought that you need to choose only one right answer. Answering a question makes the type of questions as follows:-

  • Select one answer
  • Select X answers
  • Select one or more answers (Very hard and tricky)
  • Select the one that is not correct (make sure that you read the question carefully to fall into wrong selection)

Most of the questions are fairly at a high level with few detailed ones. Usually it doesn’t stray from the course or study guide.

How many questions do I have to answer correctly?

The passing score for the exam is 76%. This boils down to 38 correct answers out of 50 questions. At the time of writing this book, all questions were equally scored, so 38/50 would give you the passing score for the exam.

How much does it cost?

In the case of Spring Certification it’s very tricky. As mentioned earlier the pre-requisites for taking this exam is training from SpringSource on Core Spring. According to various factors this can change. So it will not be a good idea to give an exact figure for the certification exam. If you have taken the training you get a voucher containing one free attempt at the certification test. Retakes are usually $150, I think that would be one of the reasons you need this book.

How can I register for the exam?

Once you get the exam voucher, you can register at any certified spring certification center. The exam can be taken at one of over 4500 world-wide testing facilities (http://www.pearsonvue.com/springsource/).

Exam resources available

You can get various resources which will be of help to you in the spring certification guide (http://www.springsource.com/files/core-spring-3.0-certification-study-guide_0.pdf) itself. Some very good links and resource locations are given below:

Spring Certification Path

SpringCertification

Figure 1 SpringSource Developer Certification Path

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