Originally posted by Sathya Srinivasan:
... the beta exam would be perceived as a tough exam. However, as time goes, I would expect J2ME (hopefully) to gain more mass and that people would starting working in J2ME, thereby developing practical knowledge. Once that happens, the exam would not look as tough as the beta testers felt and hence might pass easily, thereby breaking the statistical analysis.
One more observation I can make from this thread is that there is a perceived value to a pass percentage. Most of us, regardless of which country we are in (I studied in India and in USA), have developed a notion that 70% - 80% and above (A or B grade) is a good score. To suddenly see 55% as a pass score (equivalent to a D) creates a psychological feeling that the exam is not strict enough.
1. Sun should revise the pass percentage on a periodic basis so that future test takers find passing the exam relatively difficult. I believe the exam versioning mechanism, although a money-making scheme, also helps alleviate this problem indirectly.
2. Sun should provide a grade along with the score and make it mandatory to display a score when people say the passed a certification, much like standard exam. This can potentially be controversial since people who pass the exam with, say, 60% would not be happy to tout that they got a C on the exam. But it will definitely be fair to those who passed the exam with 95%
Originally posted by Maciej Wegorkiewicz:
... or in MIDP 2.0 spec is an error.
Look at the example on page 95 (SamplePingMe class).
On start of the startApp() it checks dconn == null.
But dconn is not initialized in constructor!