I never felt the urge to do Certification but due to some professional reasons I had to clear that off and I decided to give it a shot. Last weekend I took the Certified Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Developer examination and cleared it with 88%. Didn't do much of preparation indeed, so was a bit worried if I would clear the exam. In my personal opinion anyone who has been using Flash for more than two years can easily clear the examination, the certification by itself is not complex but the questions are very tricky. I didn't find it as tough as I expected it to be and many topics like Video, Sound, Components and Classes were trivially missing. But it's very true that none can clear the certification without a very good working knowledge in Flash. The Certified Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Developer Study Guide is of use to some extend if you are already familiar with Flash and looking for some unexplored areas in Flash MX 2004 like the uncommon ones like Projects , Accessibility and stuffs. But in general good working experience in Flash is what would really help clear the certification.
Some online materials which can come handy for the certfication are listed below :
1) Tom Kitta's Flash MX 2004 preparation guide
2) Forta.com's Certified Flash MX 2004 Developer online sample Test
3) Tom Kitta's Flash MX 2004 short test.
If anyone wants some more details about the exam, leave a comment here and I will answer them. Please don't ask for the actual questions, as it's against the rules and regulations of the exam.
Comments
I think that the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Developer Study Guide isn't that big help (as it should be!), as it is full of mistakes and even wrong answers.
Colin Mooock's books are of greater help, and above all, your experience.
Agreed. The study guide was a little help, but for being a study guide, there were way too many errors in it. The best preparation for me were using the Moock books, and the help panel in Flash.
Also, experience with flash is invaluable. There were several questions I don't think I would have been able to answer without having used the items or classes in question. Just reading about them wouldn't be good enough.
I agree that the Certfication Guide has lot of bugs in it but unfortunately I didnt get much of questions on OOP, Classes and stuffs so didn't find Coolin Moock's book useful too, in case of the certification. Iam just wondering if it was the case only with me or even others.
- LAH
In my personal experience, I think your working knowledge of Flash is paramount. I scheduled my exam when the discounted price was about to expire, and then a big project hit me, leaving me no time for any preparation. I asked around to give me an idea of the topics coming in the exam. This had me a little concerned, as you never know what's coming in the test and questions tend to be kinda tricky. Then, during the examination I got an awful lot of questions regarding some aspects of Flash I don't personally use on a regular basis. Nevertheless, I was able to secure a good percentage thanks to the rest of the questions.
How did the questions compare to the ones on forta.com, easier, harder, just the same ?
Congrats. Yeah, getting certified is typically something you'd want to do, but..
Perhaps I just need to take you're example and just take it.
Hi Guys,
Thanks for the feedback guys. I thought i'd weigh in here as I actually wrote the Certification Guide (as well as was 1 of 5 certification exam question authors).
Its worth keeping in mind when comparing books you really should compare apples with apples (and not apples with oranges). What I mean by this is that the book is really only designed as a "Study Guide", and not a Flash foundation / Flash learning book (like Colin Moock's excellent examples).
Combined with the fact that when we wrote the book we were in the difficult position of not being able to place too much emphasis on AS 2.0 (which would have disadvantaged the traditional AS 1.0 crew). So we had to find a happy balance (which IMHO wasn't always ideal).
Yes we were aware of a couple of errors in the book after it had gone to print (technical editing issue). A full list of the known errata can be found here (http://www.peachpit.com/content/images/0321256026/errata/Errata.pdf).
If you know of any more please drop me a line c/o (matt @ schematic dot com dot au).
BTW we are aware of the mix up's with the answer text (but not the answers) associated with Chapter 9
Rob, to answer your question, the actual examination is far tougher than the one in forta.com. The main difference being the questions in forta.com is very straight forward and to the point but in the actual examination the questions are very tricky there are hardly any question which is straight forward. In most cases you cant use elimination methods to get down to the answer.
-LAH
Matt, I largely agree with you that the facts that the Certification Guide is just a study guide and not a bible which teaches you how to do things. It cannot be compared to Coolin Moock's books which are targeted towards a particular purpose.
The only thing which I found very frustrating was the fact about using AS 1.0 code in examples. I understand the fact that it is done purposefully but still there was very less code which was written in AS 2.0 and when someone is consciously studying for Flash MX 2004 Certification it makes a lot of sense to have AS 2.0 code in lieu of AS 1.0 code. Maybe both AS 1.0 and AS 2.0 would have been a better option to go in for.
There are several other mistakes in the book which I found and I will mail you once I have time to go through them.
I sincerely appreciate your effort to make it better and comment on the book.
Cheers,
LAH
Hey Congrats ..... I have been planning to give the test for a while, but couldnt find time. Guess will do it in near future.
Hi Matt,
Let me apologize and clarify what I've writen, as I didn't write much and I believe it may lead to a wrong impression.
Your book does help. It guides you through all the topics, which is great because they are so many, and you don't use them all or don't even know they existed.
I say it doesn't help as much as you'd expect it to because of the mistakes. I read it by the end of August so I don't remember them... But I have to say that trying to learn something or consolidate your knowledge and coming across so many mistakes is really frustrating (although the mistakes also test your knowlegde :))
I like the way the book is organized and it does cover important topics. I loved the book's dimensions! This may seem silly, but it's quite important when you want to take it everywhere and read it anywhere.
As I had never taken such test (multiple choice and true/false questions) it also prepared me in this way.
I also didn't like refering to Flash almost everywhere as "Flash MX", when obviously it should be "Flash MX 2004". At least, just "Flash" would be correct - this brakes one's concentration when reading.
I remember searching for an errata at the time at http://www.peachpit.com/title/0321256026, and I'm sure it didn't exist!
If it weren't for all this, the mistakes, and the AS 1.0 examples it would be much better.
I just mentioned Moock's books because IMHO any serious developer should have read them. If you have, and you learnt most of what's in them, you should be ready to take the exam.
Of course they can't be compared, and that's why I bought your book and read it.
Passing the exam makes you feel just great!