I got 86% in
Java Sun certification exam.
The exam was quite tough. I came across a lot of interesting program segments. Some of the programs were quite big.
I had studied certification book by Khalid and Rasmussen. Other than that the main resource was internet. There are a lot of mock exams in internet and some study notes also. I answered all the mock exams which I were able to locate. The discussion forms on javaranch and jchq are very good.
One has to write a lot of own programs while preparing for the exams. Reading just one book is not sufficient. I had also gone through Thinking in Java, RHE, Jaworski's book and API docs along with some of the notes I got on the internet. I didn't find time to study JLS. I recommend every one to study JLS because by understand the JLS one can solve any tricky programs especially threads and inner classes. I suggest people who are new to Java to first study books like JLS and Thinking in Java, before reading at least one certification book. Reading just one book will not be sufficient. In fact I came across a few questions whose answer I am not able to point out in which specific book it can be found. And as far as programs are concerned the only way to successfully answer them in the exam is to create your own programs any observe its behavior at compile time and run time. You must also be able to analyze the responses when changes are made to the programs you create.
The questions come in the order of their corresponding objectives.
In 'Declarations and access controls' I got 75%. I lost may be due to some mistakes while understanding the question. The best source for this topic is you own programs. You must be completely aware of how the compiler and the JVM responds to various kinds of declarations.
In 'Flow control and exception handling' I got 85%. I lost may be while analyzing the programs. Jaworski's book is a good source for Flow control. RHE is a good book for exception handling.
In 'Garbage collection' I got 100%. First of all you must have a completely know how data is handled in the memory. What is the difference between static memory and heap memory? How are primitive data and objects handled in the memory? I found Jaworski's book to be the best source for this topic.
In 'Language fundamentals' I got 100%. This seems to be a lengthy objective. Just one chapter will not give all the needed resources. And you can create infinite number of programs related to this objective. RHE and Khalid and Rusmussen's books are good sources for this objective.
In 'Operators and assignments' I got 85%. This is definitely due to some silly mistake. Khalid & Rusmussen's book and your innumerable lines of own code are good sources for this objective.
In 'Classes' I got 85%. This might be due to misunderstandings in concept or questions. There is a lot of concepts you must be knowing to answer the questions in this topic. Make some notes of your own. Khalid and Rusmussen's book and mock exams like that of Vijay Samuel's are good sources for this objective.
In 'Threads' I got 85%. This might be due to misunderstandings in concept. I got huge programs while answering this objective. I spent a lot of time while answering these questions. It is suitable for programmers who have worked on
thread programming. You must understand how synchronizing different parts of a thread code using different objects, with and without wait(), affects the behavior of thread execution. The future editions of certification books must provide a lot of sample programs related to this objective.
In 'awt package' I got 75%. The tricky questions on layout managers troubled me a bit. The API docs, Khalid and Rusmussen's book and mock exams like that of Abhilash's are good sources for this objective.
In 'lang package' I got 100%. The API docs and RHE are good sources for this topic. RHE explains very nicely how strings are handled in the memory.
In 'util package' I got 100%. The API docs and Khalid and Rusmussen's book are good sources for this objective. It is sufficient to understand the capabilities of all the interfaces and classes of this package.
In 'io package' I got 100%. I was very surprised when I found that I lost some points in this objective. This must be due to some silly mistake. The API docs is the good source for this objective.�
The questions set up by Sun were interesting and unambiguous. None of them were beyond the scope of the specified objectives.
You must answer all the mock exams you come across.
Maha Anna's home page must be your entry point while searching resources on the internet.�
Some of the sites which have good resources for certification preparation are
http://www.javaranch.com http://www.jchq.net http://eddiemcnally.hypermart.net/ http://home-1.worldonline.nl/~bmc88/java/javacert/newcert1-10.html http://www.angelfire.com/or/abhilash/Main.html http://www.sarga.com http://www.absolutejava.com/articles/java-tidbits.html http://www.javaprepare.com http://jquest.webjump.com http://www.ii.uib.no/~khalid/pgjc/jcbook/engine.html http://www.srivathsan.com http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Cable/1025/exam2.html http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Station/2060/javacert.html http://valiveru.tripod.com/java/index.html http://www.appliedreasoning.com/javaCert/JavaCertification.html http://www.lanw.com/java/javacert http://www.lanw.com/java/discover/default.htm http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Screen/5046/index.html http://apollo.netservers.com/~femibyte/javaquestions.html http://www.geocities.com/swaminr/javastudynotes.htm http://www.acmerocket.com/skinny/ So much for Rs. 6975/-
Ramesh H R�
[This message has been edited by Ramesh Hebbar (edited December 20, 2000).]