Zend Certification. Not so devil
I would like to share with a respected community my experience in obtaining the coveted Zend certificate.
It's no secret that numerous certifications, and ZCPE (Zend Certified PHP Engineer), in particular, are treated differently: someone collects them and hangs them on the walls for narcissism, someone considers it a waste of time and money .
For me, ZCPE is an indicator of a certain level of knowledge, not so much for someone, but for myself, when you can say: “So, you figure it out, now let's learn something else.” And if you, like me, are a resident of a country where your certificates for the most part are indifferent to an employer, then only personal motives will be your incentive, and nobody has also canceled the abstract “want”.
Do not forget that the test is mostly artificial and theoretical, and you can pass it without serious professional experience, and therefore the main value of certification for you personally consists in conscientious full-fledged study of theoretical material during preparation.
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I was going to get certified for a long time, but I constantly put off this important event until later, until I finally read the article “I am a certified PHP specialist” on Habré, which pushed me to action. After all, in fact, waiting for the right moment and permanent preparation “by a little” can last for months and years, and then the desire will disappear. In a way, I followed the advice of the author, but went a little further into the radical interpretation of the notorious expression about the "Rubicon".
If it’s difficult for me, like me, to disagree with Socrates, then it’s very difficult to determine the border when you feel ready to take the exam. You can always reread something for which once, study manuals and work out tests in practice, but still understand that somewhere something is missing and unlearned. Also, when nothing dominates you, it is difficult to prepare yourself diligently to prepare. And here it was useful for me to apply the austere approach practiced in educational institutions, namely, to set myself an examination date before preparation. On the pearsonvue website, I reserved for myself the time and place of the exam, paid for a voucher without a test center commission. I had almost a month to bring the knowledge in order. Unfortunately, this period seemed optimistic to the brain. Almost 2 weeks flew in strange anticipation and idleness.
But soon it was time to take hold of the mind. In the conditions of the approaching cherished day, I suddenly disappeared a desire to kill time for useless activities, diligence and a thirst for knowledge appeared. From the extensive theoretical material the most neglected areas were identified and the main emphasis was placed on them. The main sources for me were:
Why is the main source of PHP data at the end? It's simple - when you already have all the basic structure of what you need to know in your head, then it is easy to string additional knowledge from the extensive manual onto it as a thread. Additionally, I can recommend a resource that I discovered, unfortunately, after passing the test, - certificationking.com . In the dump of questions from there I met several verbatim that coincided with those that caught me.
As a result, it took me about 2 weeks to prepare. The total number of pages of the re-read material is about 500, which, in general, is quite a bit, but I also handwritten the outline for better memorization and also worked out the most interesting moments in practice, because it naturally naturally slowed down the process by improving the quality of knowledge .
Before the test, the main question and source of anxiety was doubt whether there was enough time available. As it turned out, 90 minutes for 70 test questions is more than enough, if you do not stay a long time over the tasks that cause difficulties. It is better to skip them and return later. After answering all the questions, I had 35 minutes to review and double-check all the tasks. Thanks to this, several errors were found. The program for testing twice asked if I really wanted to complete the test, since I still had time, and I was persistent. A second of waiting when impressionable people should not look at the screen. We open our eyes, look at the screen and become resigned to fate.
Congratulations! You have passed the Zend Certified PHP Engineer.
I want to wish everyone who is going to undergo certification success in this not the most difficult business. Do not worry, be careful - and everything will turn out.
PS My colleague for training trained on questions from the site onlinetestcentre.com . According to him, approximately 70% of the questions in the end almost coincided.
It's no secret that numerous certifications, and ZCPE (Zend Certified PHP Engineer), in particular, are treated differently: someone collects them and hangs them on the walls for narcissism, someone considers it a waste of time and money .
For me, ZCPE is an indicator of a certain level of knowledge, not so much for someone, but for myself, when you can say: “So, you figure it out, now let's learn something else.” And if you, like me, are a resident of a country where your certificates for the most part are indifferent to an employer, then only personal motives will be your incentive, and nobody has also canceled the abstract “want”.
Do not forget that the test is mostly artificial and theoretical, and you can pass it without serious professional experience, and therefore the main value of certification for you personally consists in conscientious full-fledged study of theoretical material during preparation.
')
I was going to get certified for a long time, but I constantly put off this important event until later, until I finally read the article “I am a certified PHP specialist” on Habré, which pushed me to action. After all, in fact, waiting for the right moment and permanent preparation “by a little” can last for months and years, and then the desire will disappear. In a way, I followed the advice of the author, but went a little further into the radical interpretation of the notorious expression about the "Rubicon".
If it’s difficult for me, like me, to disagree with Socrates, then it’s very difficult to determine the border when you feel ready to take the exam. You can always reread something for which once, study manuals and work out tests in practice, but still understand that somewhere something is missing and unlearned. Also, when nothing dominates you, it is difficult to prepare yourself diligently to prepare. And here it was useful for me to apply the austere approach practiced in educational institutions, namely, to set myself an examination date before preparation. On the pearsonvue website, I reserved for myself the time and place of the exam, paid for a voucher without a test center commission. I had almost a month to bring the knowledge in order. Unfortunately, this period seemed optimistic to the brain. Almost 2 weeks flew in strange anticipation and idleness.
But soon it was time to take hold of the mind. In the conditions of the approaching cherished day, I suddenly disappeared a desire to kill time for useless activities, diligence and a thirst for knowledge appeared. From the extensive theoretical material the most neglected areas were identified and the main emphasis was placed on them. The main sources for me were:
- zend-php.appspot.com/questions_list - known to all dump questions from the test, allows you to quickly identify weaknesses;
- The PHP Certification Study Guide is a small but useful book, a brief overview of all the topics and a few questions similar to those of the test;
- edward-designer.com/web/passing-php-5-3-certification-exam/ is an excellent blog, where, according to the guide from the first paragraph, much more theory is presented;
- php.net - official documentation.
Why is the main source of PHP data at the end? It's simple - when you already have all the basic structure of what you need to know in your head, then it is easy to string additional knowledge from the extensive manual onto it as a thread. Additionally, I can recommend a resource that I discovered, unfortunately, after passing the test, - certificationking.com . In the dump of questions from there I met several verbatim that coincided with those that caught me.
As a result, it took me about 2 weeks to prepare. The total number of pages of the re-read material is about 500, which, in general, is quite a bit, but I also handwritten the outline for better memorization and also worked out the most interesting moments in practice, because it naturally naturally slowed down the process by improving the quality of knowledge .
Before the test, the main question and source of anxiety was doubt whether there was enough time available. As it turned out, 90 minutes for 70 test questions is more than enough, if you do not stay a long time over the tasks that cause difficulties. It is better to skip them and return later. After answering all the questions, I had 35 minutes to review and double-check all the tasks. Thanks to this, several errors were found. The program for testing twice asked if I really wanted to complete the test, since I still had time, and I was persistent. A second of waiting when impressionable people should not look at the screen. We open our eyes, look at the screen and become resigned to fate.
Congratulations! You have passed the Zend Certified PHP Engineer.
I want to wish everyone who is going to undergo certification success in this not the most difficult business. Do not worry, be careful - and everything will turn out.
PS My colleague for training trained on questions from the site onlinetestcentre.com . According to him, approximately 70% of the questions in the end almost coincided.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/252199/
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