This blog is most relevant for people who are going to take certification, after having some experience in SAP SD. Last month, I completed my certification on order fulfillment. It was a great experience and a good learning for me. I wish to share the strategy that I followed to crack it. Please comment, if you need any more info on the areas which I'm listing out here.
Exam structure:-
SAP certification is well designed by SAP to assess our knowledge on the topic, process and the value to the business from it. From the syllabus, we could expect the weightage given to every topic. The questions are objective in nature that carries 2, 3 and 5 marks. There is no credit for partially correct answers. So you have to select all the correct options to get a credit for the question. Most of the questions (90- 95%) would have multiple correct answers. Every question will be having a hint about number of correct answers, except for unique choice ones.
Planning: <2 days>
Anything without planning will go in vain. So a proper planning and sticking to your plan are very important during preparation. I had just one month for preparation. I could not able to spend whole day for preparation, as I am working. Still I could manage to allocate fruitful 4 hrs. every day (2hrs at night after work + 2 hrs. in the morning). I spent two days in collecting information such as syllabus, weightage to be given for the topic, materials to be gone through, sample question papers etc. To see information on syllabus and sample questions follow the link here. http://www.sap.com/services/education/certification/certroles/applications.epx
Once you are having sufficient information about the certification, work out the sample questions provided in the link above and identify your weak areas. Note it down in your notepad. This will be very useful at later stage. Now finalize the materials and the useful links from internet for preparation. Create a new folder in your laptop and keep it ready for use. While start preparing, you should not waste time on sourcing additional materials.
Execution: ❤️ weeks>
Planning without Execution is futile. So, prepare an agenda from the topics identified through the syllabus. Broadly you can classify the topics in the following manner and keep deadlines for the same.
- Sales and Pricing - <1 week>
- Shipping - <1 week>
- Billing - <1 week>
Here is your Modus operandi:-
- Go through your book / Materials collected from Internet – (Mon to Friday). Try to avoid browsing on internet. You could better download those materials during the planning stage. Because we may get lots of distractions while online, such as, social networking, chatting etc. This will eat up your time. During preparation, give high importance to the topic as per your weak area identified on the prelims.
- Engage with your group / experts on clarifying the doubts or explain your well known concept to a needy. (if you are studying together) - (Mon to Friday). Your knowledge would be multiplied and will remain deep rooted on the brain, if you teach someone what you have learned.
- Browse SDN forums and look for expert’s replies on various real time issues – (Saturday and Sunday of the week). Post in the forum only if the topic is not discussed earlier. You have an option to search any topic in the forum. This will improve on application of various building blocks of SD such as document types, item category, schedule lines, copy control etc.
- Practice in IDES. (Mon to Fri) Navigate through all the screens as you progress on your studies and click F1 to know more about any field. You could understand better by practicing it than visualizing the concept on your own.
- Test your knowledge (Saturday and Sunday) – There are many websites where you can assess your knowledge on SD. But please don’t expect the same questions in your certification. At the end of the assessment, it’s very important to note down the weak areas. Work on your weak areas during Sundays.
Optimization: - <2 days>
Now you have completed all the materials and tested your knowledge on the topics. It’s time to try your hand on a comprehensive test which covers all the topics. As done earlier, please do note the weak areas and strengthen it more during this period.
Taking exam:-
Your job is not done yet. Here is your final day to show your expertise to SAP. While appearing for the exam, the invigilator will guide you on setting up the system and filling some forms. Be cool and confident, as you have already covered your weak areas and excelled on those topics. If you have faith in God, pray for a good presence of mind.
The best approach on the exam is to answer only the questions that you know very well. For instance, there is a question with three correct answers (as per hint). But you could choose two choices confidently and having a vague idea about remaining choices. It is better to leave the question without answering it and move on. You can flag the question for later review. This will give you a good confidence that whatever you have answered is 100% correct and there won’t be less than 5% slippage.
You will enough time to review the questions. Once you are done with the initial round, navigate to the flagged questions by opening up the review screen and approach it freshly. You would have got a clue to answer it from the questions that you had appeared before. This time you feel much more confident on selecting the vague choices.
At the end, review only the following things.
- Whether you have selected enough choices as per the hint provided.
- Have you missed any question without answering it?
Then click Submit and wait. It will process your results and display on the screen. The scores will be calculated and shown segment wise. You can note it down on a paper provided at the exam hall. That’s it….
There is no substitute for hard work…. All the best!!!
