mikebernat.com Web-Development, Design, Usability

2009.02.09

I passed the Zend PHP5 Certification Exam last week and thought I would share my experience with it.

Zend Yellow Pages

I decided that I wanted to take the test about 2 1/2 months ago. The first thing I did was visit the site and learn more about the exam itself. I discovered it covers almost every facet of the language and its use. Here is a breakdown of the major sections:

• PHP Basics
• Functions
• Arrays
• Object Oriented Programming
• Security
• XML & Web Services
• Strings & Patterns
• Databases & SQL
• Web Features
• Streams & Network Programming
• PHP 4/5 Differences
• Design & Theory

You can get a more details topic list for each section on the PHP5 Certification Landing Page.

For the first month I spent time reading e-books and other free material on the subjects mentioned above that I felt weak in. I was not very devoted during the first month and only spent a couple hours (3-5) each week.

At the beginning of the second month, I purchased two books recommended by a lot of others who passed the exam.

Zend PHP Certification Study Guide - Zend Technologies

The first book is published by Zend and is 'the official study guide to prepare for the Zend PHP Certification exam'. I liked this book because it was very focused and clear about the topics it was covering. It also has a couple of practice questions at the end of each chapter to prepare you for the real thing.

There is also a glossary of terms that help you become familiar with some of the terminology used. Not sure what a HEREDOC or MTA is? Look it up quickly with this book.

This book does have a few technical errors in some examples that you do need to watch out for.

 

Zend PHP Certification Study Guide 2nd Edition - Davey Safik and Ben Ramsey

I actually started reading this book first. This book contains more information about each topic but seems less focused. What I mean is that the major topics are covered and explained fairly well but it doesn't go as in-depth when it comes to sub-topics. I frequently caught myself going to this book when I needed more general information about something but tended to stay with the aforementioned book because it helped me stay focused.

This book does not contain any practice questions or glossary, which is a bummer.

 

 

Zend PHP 5 Certification Online Practice Testing

My last resource was the online practice tests made available Zend. They are in the same format as the real test: 70 questions with a 90 minute timer. The layout of the actual test is a little different than these practice tests but nothing significant. The advantage to these practice tests is that you can go on past the 90 minutes and it will give you two scores. One when the time expired and the other is based on the final submission.

It's important to note that the practice tests do not tell you how you did on each question. Rather it breaks the test down into each major section and gives you one of three scores - fail, pass, or passed with flying colors. I found this to be very annoying but understood the intended benefit.

I took a total of 5 exams out of the 10 that I purchased. After the 5th exam a significant number of questions were repeats which really took away from the 'fear' and 'anxiety' factor of the test. I heavily recommend you take the test until you pass with flying colors in each major section to be ready for the real thing.

 

Overview

It's been mentioned before and I agree that none of these resources alone are enough to make you feel confident going into the test. Rather, a combination of each resource should be taken advantage of to feel fully prepared. I took every practice question in Zend's book twice and read the entire book two or three times total. I spent a good deal of time in PHP Architect's book but probably only read it front-to-back once.

I consider the practice test to be the most beneficial. I took one test almost immediately after I purchased them to have a baseline benchmark. With a general idea of where I stood in each section I was able to concentrate my studying in those sections. After I was satisfied that I had improved I retook the test and repeated the process until I passed every section with flying colors.

Even with this I still considered the real test to be difficult. The practice test claims to be generally harder than the exam - In my opinion, this is not true.

The style of questions was very test-like. They were very obscure blocks of code that obviously had no real-world use but still covered several very important concepts. There are four types of questions:

• Single choice questions - Multiple choice, choose one
• Multiple choice questions - Multiple choice, choose several
• Fill in the blank questions - Several blanks in a sentence, choose from multiple possible answers
• Open questions - fill in the blank (text input)

 

Test Day!

The test was observed by a proctor at a Pearson Vue testing center of my choice. They took all my belongings and stored them in a secure area (unlocked closet), sat me down in front of a computer, and gave me a laminated sheet of legal-length paper with a dry-erase marker (no eraser, although I'm sure I could have asked for one). The proctor starts the exam and after a few screens explaining the rules, agreeing to a NDA, andmaking sure I was ready, the test began.

I can't really talk much about the test or specific questions that were asked but I can say that they were from every topic. A good variety of mixed-up questions. I don't believe it was the type of test where the questions adjusted themselves based on whether or not you answered correctly or not. It is important to note that there are trick questions.

I found these questions in the book, practice exam, and the exam itself. There would be large blocks of code that would never get executed because of some small detail. I don't believe they are intended to be tricky just for the sake of amusing the test-authors, rather to see if you really pay attention to details in the code. I think we can all agree that attention to detail is of utmost importance in this profession.

Once you have completed all 70 questions you are presented with a chance to go back to any particular question and re-evaluate your answer. Once you're satisfied with your performance you submit the test for grading. After a couple seconds (seemed like days) of plugging and chugging you get a screen with either Pass or Fail. The proctor hands you a printed certificate with your candidate number, grade, and sends you on your way.

 

Tough Subjects

These were the toughest subjects for me because I do not use them very often:

• Bitwise operators.
• Data Types
  
• XML & Web Services.
• Type Hinting
  
• Database topics - PDO, mysqli, transactions, and other database technologies.
• A lot of functions. I had to memorize a lot of functions that I forgot about or used often yet never seemed to remember the parameter order or particular definition. I've become conditioned to pull up the PHP manual and look something up in my sleep. The function you need to know pulled from every corner of PHP. Strings, arrays, files, and network streams just to name a few.
• Nuances of PHP's variable juggling.
• And more!

 

Conclusion

I spent a lot of time studying at my leisure but really buckled down the last two weeks leading up to the exam. As I said before, none of the resources I found are enough to make you feelconfident going into the test. Rather, all of them together do a nice job preparing you. There are a lot of questions on subjects that you probably have never used in the past and may never use in the future. I recommend spending some extra time as you may have to memorize several key functions and their parameters for the exam.

I'm glad I spent the time and effort to earn the certification. I know that there are those out there who question its usefulness but I found it extremely helpful. Not only do I find myself more confident in my abilities to use the language properly, but I get to use the Zend logo on my site :)