Frequently Asked Questions
While the certification process we have employed to this point is being paused, we have some exciting new training courses on the way – including free and on-demand options. Stay tuned for news on these courses as they become available.
Anyone that has purchased a certification voucher under our current program will need to complete their certification testing via a Pearson Vue testing location prior to June 30, 2023 at 12:00am EDT.
Due to the above deadline, if you fail your certification testing exam you will not have a retake opportunity.
We encourage impacted teams to schedule a certification before June 15, 2023 via the instructions provided below.
To schedule your exam, go to http://www.pearsonvue.com/zend/ create an account, and select your preferred testing center, date, and time (before June 15, 2023). Before confirming your scheduled exam, enter your voucher number in the Exam Voucher field, select APPLY so balance due will then become $0.00 and then proceed with confirmation.
If your team has scheduled a certification appointment after June 15, 2023, you will need to reschedule your exam for before the June 15, 2023 deadline.
Sorry, but we do not offer refunds for exam voucher purchases. However, the voucher can be transferred to another person and used prior to the expiration date.
At the end of the exam you will receive a pass/fail grade.
We will email your diploma once you have passed the exam. Please allow 6 weeks for delivery.
On the day of the exam don't forget to take 2 forms of identification with you to the testing center--testing staff must verify your identity.
In general, yes. You can also include the logo provided here. The only exception is for those who have passed the Zend PHP Certification exam and live in Ontario, Canada. For legal reasons, you cannot use the designation "Zend Certified Engineer" on your resume/CV or business card. You can, however, use the acronym "ZCE" to stand for "Zend Certification Endorsed".
Before taking an exam, a candidate must read it and agree to the terms of our non-disclosure agreement. The non-disclosure agreement is presented to the candidate before the exam starts. If you do not agree to the non-disclosure agreement, you can end the exam, but you will forfeit the exam fee. The NDA prohibits you from discussing or describing the exam or its questions with anyone.
The Zend Certification exams encompasses curriculum specified the Zend PHP Education Advisory Board and the Zend Framework Education Advisory Board as essential to demonstrate expert proficiency in PHP or Zend Framework.
Each Board's members are among the most well known and respected in the PHP and Zend Framework Communities. It is important to note that the Board is completely neutral and was not influenced by Zend's business objectives. In fact, the only point Zend insisted upon was that exam excludes references or questions relating to Zend's products.
You now have 2 options to take the test.
You can go to a Pearson VUE Testing Center, which are available in over 4700 locations around the world. Contact your local testing center to arrange an exam date/time. You can register online or by calling your local center.In most cases, you also have the option to take the test in your home. OnVUE online proctored exams allow you to conveniently take an exam in the comfort of your home or office while being monitored by an offsite proctor. Before choosing this option we suggest that you run a system test to be sure you can utilize this option.
Please note: The second option (test at home) is only available in English and cannot be taken in the following locations: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Slovenia, Japan, South Korea, China, *Syrian Arab Republic (Syria).
The exam itself is very similar to most other IT exams offered these days. The exam is taken in an isolated room, using a specially configured computer. The exam is closed-book, so you won't be able to consult any reference material or use the Internet while taking it.
The PHP exam is composed of a total of 75 questions, and the Zend Framework Exam is composed of 70 questions, which must be answered in 90 minutes. Each question can be formulated in one of three ways:
As a multiple-choice question with only one right answer. As a multiple-choice question with multiple correct answers. As a free-form question for which the answer must be typed in.
The PHP exam is based on version PHP 200-710. Test takers should study this version when preparing for the exam.
The exam was designed to evaluate knowledge of PHP from a practical perspective. While there are a few theoretical items, the vast majority of the questions are based on the ability to evaluate and analyze a snippet of code. For a complete list of topics, see: PHP Certification.
Put simply, you need to know those technologies that a PHP developer uses in his/her day-to-day job, including databases and regular expressions. As far as the latter are concerned, the focus is on Perl regular expressions, while for databases the focus is on standard SQL, rather than any particular implementation. If you've learned databases exclusively by using MySQL, it is strongly urged you look into standard SQL, because MySQL diverges from it in some significant ways.
Why standard SQL? A PHP developer should know about proper database design so that he/she can work with more than one DBMS, and so that the developer who uses, say, Oracle or PostgreSQL is not at a disadvantage -- after all, this is a PHP exam, not a LAMP one.
If you have questions or concerns regarding your certification voucher, or the details listed above, please contact us today at itraining@zend.com.