I have been busy studying for the Zend Certification for PHP 5 over the last few weeks on my lunch breaks. I’ve now got to the end of the study guide and so yesterday I took my first practice exam online. I received the following break down for the major areas covered:

  • Functions - Excellent
  • OOP - Excellent
  • String Manipulation and Regular Expressions - Excellent
  • Web Features - Pass
  • Security - Pass
  • XML & Web Services - Pass
  • Basic Language - Pass
  • Database Access - Pass
  • Arrays - Fail
  • Design - Fail
  • PHP 4/5 Differences - Fail
  • Streams and Network Programming - Fail

My overall mark was a pass! I am quite pleased with this, it shows me areas I need to concentrate on to practice on my other nine practice tests.

Essentially I have been self taught PHP over a good 6/7 years and as it is currently quite central to my work I thought I’d like to gain certification that says I can do what I say I can do! This is particularly true as I do not currently have a personal project which demonstrates my skills - although I am working on this! Gaining certification from PHP’s commercial backers, Zend, will put me in a strong position to demonstrate my skills and place me amoung the exclusive list of UK PHP developers with this qualification.

I’ll keep you posted about future practice tests and, hopefully not in the too distant future, the real test. Wish me luck!