While the study guide is minimal, it is intended to be. And the topic list is essentially your list of what to learn in order to pass. Don't worry about the big topics, but look at the small ones, rate yourself on a scale of 1-3.
- I know it
- I kind of know it/I need a little bit of review
- I have no clue/I want to build it to see if I understand it
Forget the 1's
Start learning the 2's
Work your way into the 3's
I would say that this advice could be followed for any of the certification exams.
As for the developer certification specifically, the Force.com Fundamentals is good. The Force.com workbook. And don't overlook the online help and training. When the exams are reviewed, the first point of reference for any question that needs to be modified/clarified is the help and training.
A few weeks before your exam, go through the current release training. Every question for every exam is reviewed every single release. If you began your prep in Winter 13, but your exam will be on Spring 13, you might be relying on old information.
Finally, I always caution people about practice exams. Because of the always changing nature of the platform (and by extension the certification exams), that person who wrote those practice questions a year ago, may have been spot-on correct then, but a year later they may be out of date. Unless the questions you are using list the release they were written for, don't rely on a successful practice exam to tell you you will pass our certification.
I teach our Developer curriculum (including DEV401). That's my job at SFDC right now. Those people who go on and get their Developer Certification after DEV401 invariably tell me that it was a huge benefit to take the course. Everyone who teaches it themselves has to be Developer certified, as well as go through our rigorous instructor certification process. So if that is an option for you. Yes. Take DEV401. You will not regret it.
I decided to take this exam (Multiple Choice) after i completed one year of development on force.com platform.
Majority of the questions test your apex and Visualforce skills and make sure you are familiar and have some practical hands on before you decide to go for this exam.
I found multiple blogs helping me to clear this exam with lot of ease .I just blogged in my blog too on some tips that i found helpful
http://cloudyworlds.blogspot.in/2012/09/advanced-developer-first-round.html
http://cloudyworlds.blogspot.in/2013/07/tips-on-passing-advanced-developer.html
Pay attention to
1)Email services(Inbound Email Handler Class and Test Class)
2)Webservices(SOAP and REST)
3)Deployment strategies
4)Various org editions provided by salesforce and there data limtations
5)Some Visualforce tags like apex:component,apex:include,apex:composition,tags related to Visualforce email template,ajax related tags (Action function,action support,action Region,etc)
6)Test classes and best practices while writing test code
7)Visualforce controllers (standard ,custom and extensions and how they differ)
8)Static Resources and there usage
9)PDF generation in force.com
Hope this helps you.As others have pointed go through the materials on Partner portal they are really helpful.All the best!
Best Answer
Rather than asking for mock exams/ dumps, you should refer the Official Guide and try to learn the new concepts. SFSE is a place for getting community help for your technical queries, not for shortcuts to "help me clear the exam".