Few days back cleared PHP 5 certification exam. Will share my thoughts about preparation

First of all you should have at least 6moths-1 Year of coding experience in PHP unless ur really geeky kind of a person. Exam isn't  very hard but u need to have good preparation. It had many question related other web technologies like  XML, security and not just PHP. I would rank exam difficulty as medium. Some thing very irritating is, lot of questions about function names and whats more some of these function names have to be entered, u got it right no multiple choice. Surprisingly lot of questions about file uploads, i didnt do well in those.

Now coming to preparation

• Must read book "zend php 5 certification study guide" Good thing about this book is it restricts ur reading to topics which are most likely to appear in the exam. Read and re-read this book. Buy it above given link or just search around u will get free pdf download.
• Other helpful books  "php cook book" by oreilly, "php 5 power programming" by oreilly, "PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice" By Matt Zandstra This is really good book if you want to know about OOP & design patterns but not needed for exam sake. "Pro PHP XML and Web Services" by Robert Richards good for advanced knowldge of xml & web services but over kill for exam.
  
• Online blogs/links  http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Zend/Taking-the-Zend-Certified-PHP-Engineer-Exam-My-Story/,www.zend.com/en/services/certification/php-5-certification/, just search around net you would get many.
• Zend yellow pages  Lists who cleared this exam recently, u may leave private message. For india this is link the Lihttp://www.zend.com/store/education/certification/yellow-pages.php#list-cid=102&firstname=&lastname=&orderby=name&sid=XX&company=&photo_first=&certtype=PHP5&ClientCandidateID=
• Practice test  The Zend PHP Certification Practice Test Book , search around u may get free pdf download.
• Online test  I bought 5 online test pack, better attend few online test before going for exam. most of the questions were repeated in 3rd & 4th online tests so not sure if it makes any sense to go for 10 online test pack.
• How to take exam Contacted zend sales people through https://www.zend.com/en/contact, got $25 rebate and paid money online. Take print out of the voucher & dont forget note down the voucher number before going to test center. May be u can directly go to test center and pay money but not sure just check out with test center.
• Test Centers in india, I had to wait for more than 1and half hours at test  center. https://vss.pearsonvue.com/VSSReports/ActiveIndiaTestingCenters.cfm.

Not sure whats the value of this certification in terms of getting job etc but good to test ur php skills. Hope this helps.

UPDATE:
Recently found new blog regarding preparation http://saidur.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/how-to-preapre-for-zend-php5-certification-exam/ .   But so many congrats!  .... i never knew ZCE is reputed or difficult :)