Today I took and passed the Zend Framework certification exam. A possible project involving Zend might be materializing in the near future, and this was a requirement from one of my contractors (OpenIT). Being that they offered to sponsor the cost, I had no reason not take it.

As I found no concrete online information on the test (and the guide link from Zend doesn't work), I might as well elaborate a little for the benefit of future test takers reading this blog -

The test is 1.5 hours long and composed of 75 questions. Most questions are multiple choice with the rest being open-ended (usually requiring to enter what you believe will the be the result input from several manipulations). The scope of the test is pretty encompassing, touching some modules that I wouldn't normally use (or even imagine a possible use scenario for), but if you have enough experience of the core features (MVC, Db, Cache, Filter/Validation, Localization / Internationalization and Security) and coding standards - you should do just fine.

The one thing to watch out for is the relatively high percentage of trick questions - which actually made the test somewhat harder than I'd anticipated (after you hit several trick questions in a row, you start being suspicious of every question). Some questions didn't even have an absolutely right answer, but sort of the answer of least incorrectness.

Thankfully, 1.5 hours is plenty long for delibrating some of those more ambigious questions - I had finished my first run in about 35 minutes and rechecked everything in 10 more minutes - leaving me 45 minutes to spare.

I do have some more respect for people holding the certification now (regarding knowledge and experience), though I'm not sure what regard does it hold in the industry (this is the first time I've encountered someone asking for it - and the client is Zend itself, so it's not surprising). If anyone has had previous experience with ZF certification qualification requirements, I would love to hear it.