I passed the Zend PHP Certification exam last September, 2015 and I haven’t blogged about this, but I thought it is a good time to write this down for you guys. There are a lot of people who are asking me on what does it take to be a ZCPE. Well, all you need is some dedication, time, and effort. It took me 4 months to review for the exam and the results speak for itself, but I have to tell you, it’s not as easy as it seems to be. I’m not scaring you or anything but after this is said and done, you’ll be able to take your skills to another level.
So why do you need to take the exam? Again, as I had wrote on my previous post about HubSpot Certification it all boils down on the “want”. How much do you want to measure your skills and experience in the world of PHP. This will allow you to attain the title “Zend Certified Engineer” (ZCE). It’s much the same as “Microsoft’s Certified Professionals (MCP)” or “Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP)”. However, this will not guarantee that you’ll be a better programmer in the future because PHP is evolving and you have to keep up with the pace that the language can offer. It’s not free so you have to pay $195 to get the PHP Voucher and book schedule on one of the Pearson Vue Testing Centers in your area.
Out of all the certification that I’ve got, this is probably the most difficult exam that I took simply because the questions are not just simple execution but you need to think and recollect your past experiences on working with the language. The questions are formulated in three types:
- A multiple-choice question with only one right answer.
- A Multiple-choice question with multiple correct answers.
- Identification wherein you have to type in the right answer.
As PHP is mainly used as a web development language, the ZCE tests the candidate over a variety of skills necessary for developing web applications. The PHP 5 Certification exam covers:
- PHP Basics
- Functions
- Arrays
- Object-oriented programming
- Security, including Cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection
- XML and Web Services, including SimpleXML, XPath, SOAP, and REST
- Strings and patterns, including PCRE
- Databases and SQL and PDO
- Web Features, such as sessions, forms, GET and POST data, cookies, and HTTP headers
- Streams and Network Programming
- Design and Theory
- php.ini settings
To see the full list of topics, browse on to the Zend PHP Certification Information.
There are a lot of resources out there that you can use for your reviewer so you are not limited to one resource only. YouTube is there if you want some video tutorials and you can use Zend’s Study Guide to guide you through the topics that you need to know. I haven’t used their test prep so all of my reviews are all self-paced.
If you want to ask me on what is the passing grade? Don’t ask me because I don’t know. The system will either give you a passing screen in which it says, “Hey, congratulations! You’ve passed the test” or a fail screen which gives you the areas that you need to work with. I didn’t get the fail screen because I passed on the first try.
For more FAQs visit their certification FAQ page on Zend.com.
