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I understand they recently changed the tests for the platform developer exam. I am studying to pass this exam and was wondering if anyone has any tips for studying?

Thanks to all in advanced!

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    This might get marked as off-topic, so I'm leaving a comment. I passed Platform Dev 1 right after it came out. I was in the process of studying for Adv Dev, and a lot of what I studied for that was useful. There were a LOT of execution order questions, so be really solid on that. You'll need to be able to read and spot errors in Apex, and you'll need to know where to use Apex, where to use VF, where to use lightning, and where to use P+C tools.
    – Christian Carter
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 17:05
  • Thanks for the help/ideas, and congrats on passing. Sorry about the subject, i felt it was on topic
    – jaaaaaahhhhh
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 18:36
  • No worries! It may not get closed, I think it's a great question but these "opinion-y" questions tend to get cleaned up.
    – Christian Carter
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 19:40

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This answer may well get downvoted since there's already an answer that basically copy + pasted the study guide, but I can offer some tips and insight into what I found surprising and what was expected.

I passed Platform Developer I over the weekend. I was studying for Advanced Developer when they announced the changes - as a result, for this exam, I felt overprepared in some areas and underprepared in others.

In general, the study guide is a "fair" representation of the actual exam material, in the sense that most of what was on the exam was contained in the study guide in some form or another - but this is not to say that you have to know every item in the study guide down cold to pass this exam.

I will break it down into two major areas:

  1. Working experience with Apex/Visualforce/SOQL/SOSL (roughly 35%)

  2. Platform Fundamentals (roughly 65%)

#1:

I would say that personally, I was likely prepared for these questions after 6 months of developing on the Force.com platform. Without intense preparation, I don't think Platform Developer I can realistically be achieved without at least this much time developing hands-on with Apex and Visualforce. There will be questions that mimic common design patterns and "gotchas" in the context of triggers, classes, controllers, extensions, governor limits. You need to really understand WHY governor limits and design patterns exist instead of simply memorizing the documentation (although that helps). You need to know Apex fundamentals down cold - such as:

  • Controllers vs extensions
  • With/without sharing and how that's enforced up an execution context
  • Best testing practices (design and annotations)
  • The order of execution in a transaction (this is huge - you must know this cold)
  • Schema and Database classes are powerful tools and you need to know their methods cold as well

#2:

This is where you demonstrate your ability to recall fundamentals of the platform. A lot of functionality that makes Salesforce truly powerful is tested here:

  • Knowing when to use workflows/Process Builder/triggers/formula fields.
  • You must have a crystal-clear understanding of how security is enforced across different types of object relationships.
  • Know the different types of orgs, which type is appropriate for certain situations, and
  • Different ways to move metadata from one org to another.
  • Schema Builder

It truly is a fun exam if you're prepared for it, and it is much more representative of developing on the platform than the original developer certification was. If this answer is received well, I can update with more information.

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    Great Answer!!!! I am taking the test tomorrow, please add more information if you have time.
    – jaaaaaahhhhh
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 21:26
  • great answer! Any more information would be greatly appreciated.
    – Olivia
    Commented Sep 25, 2016 at 22:08
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Salesforce Platform Developer I is the certification for the developers with 1-2 years of development experience on force.com platform. If you have the experience on developing you can go for this certification. The real time experience helps you a lot. The main topics covered are Apex, Vusialforce and Lightning.

If you look at the study guide. You will have the recommended training and references. This includes the videos and documentation and you can have access to this material from Help&Training of your production org if you are premier user. Most of the questions are directly from here so pls make a notes for a quick reference.

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Also try to google for the salesforce documentation based on the weightage of each section.

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