didnt make it...need ur help

[gayathri bhushan]

hi everybody,
i took the exam on 24th and i didnt get through..i got 34 answers right and didnt pass the exam....the big surprise is i had never failed in any of the mock exams and i always scored 75-80% in the mock tests even in the first one i took...and the day i went for exam i got 100% in the rules roundup game...and i really dont know what went wrong....
this was a very big blow to me as i've never failed in my life...even in a class test...

i am planning to take the exam again..but i really dont know where to start and what other ways can i prepare? iam really off and bummed with this. Now i have no idea of how to study or what to do. Can someone please guide me how to prepare and how do i start again....
gayathri

[Pratiti Naphade]

so sorry gayathri.Even i couldn't make it 4 months back....then the passing was 71% and i got 69%....
try and see what ur weak points were.....do u remeber what kind Q had come so probably u know whwere u lost and improvise...I think basically ifd u clear ur fundas ...things get simpler....
even i am gonna reattempt the exam on the 2 nd April..Lets see what happens....
basically lost all my points in AWT and flow control ...Math..I fooound all those operators very difficult and basicaly i thought i should concentrate more on object oriented concepts..but beleive me all the other packages and operators are extremely important to give u a boost in the exam....
sometimes u score in the area of overridin and stuff but lose on allthis...pls let meknow if i could be of any help...
i surely know how u feelrite now....
take a break...and start all over again!!

[This message has been edited by Pratiti Naphade (edited March 27, 2001).]

[Jane Griscti]

Hi gayathri,
Sorry to hear you didn't make it. Don't loose heart, many people have failed the first time around but were successful on their second attempt.
Perhaps the best approach is to review the areas you were weak on then go back through all the mocks targeting those areas. Did you take most of the mocks: Bill Brogden's, Jaworski's, Marcus Green's, etc. The full list is at http://www.javaranch.com/mock.jsp
Perhaps go back through the mocks focusing on the specific areas you had a problem with. Marcus Green has a good 'exam' tutorial on his site http://www.jchq.net
All the best.
------------------
Jane Griscti
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java� 2 Platform

[Anonymous]

Hi Gayathri,
How much time did you take to prepare ? Even I got questions which were very different from the mock exams. It does surprise you. This time around focus on writing codes. At the same time
don't give the mock exams a complete miss. They are helpful.
Tell us more on how you prepared (books ?)
Siddharth,
OCP,SCJP.

[girish rateshwar]

Well gayathri sorry to hear about your test result.Even i had got 33 right one's and needed 2 more to get through.But to tell you the truth i think if you have your fundamentals right all you need to be doing during the test,is keep a cool head and concentrate hard.
Now when i have tried to recollect the questions,i think i should have passed with a decent score.
Anyway's it would be nice of you if you could discuss the questions you got in the exam.
I'am planning to take the test next month.
All the very best!
Regards,
Girish.

[Mark Spritzler]

Sorry you didn't pass. But I had the same problem. I just passed with a 64, even though I was scoreing 80-85 on the mock exams. I think the mock exams was more geared towards the older test, when you needed a 71 to pass. The test threw me for a loop, because the questions weren;t like the mock's.
I think writing sample code yourself on the different areas, let's the concepts become more ingrained in the head.
I know you will pass the next time, so don't worry.
Mark

[Martin Pope]

Sorry to hear that. I had a very simuliar experience about a week ago. I got 35 questions correct (59%). If I had gotten one more correct, I would have passed. :0( I was soooo disappointed because I had been scoring 70-80% on the mock exams as well. However since that time, I purchased JQPlus ($20.00) and it closely simulates the current exam, where the other mock tests are geared to the old exam. It provides a series of standard tests, allows you to create custom tests, generates random tests, provides explanations to the correct answers as well as the wrong one, etc. You can get JQPlus here: http://enthuware.com/jqplus/ Try it. If you pass this, then I think you will have no trouble passing the actual exam.

[Vineet Sharma]

Dear Gayathri,
Sorry to hear that you could not make it. I am sure you will pass the next time. Here are my observations about the exam...
1. I think, as the computer picks randomly from a pool of questions, it is possible that you may end up getting a lot of "not so easy" questions. I was getting b/w 75% to 85% in the mock quetions, but was baffled at the real exam. It was so tough!!! All the same I know a lot of people who say that their exam was very easy.
2. A very good strategy would be to nest questions or concepts in a single question. I realised there were many questions like this in my own exam. For example, make a question on switch. Pass a parameter(to the switch case) which requires some conversion or casting. Further this parameter comes from the main method through a method call! You may also add this in a try/catch block.
3. Make your own simple code/ questions and play around with it. Doing this helped me clear a lot of concepts.
4. Take a printout of the mock question paper. Try running the code based questions by making little variations here and there.Eg.
char c = 'a'; //legal
char c = a; //illegal
char c = 9; //legal
char c = '9' // legal but
char c = '10' //illegal! and
char c = 10 //legal!
I wish you all the best in your exam and life. Don't get disheartend...
Gunjan Sharma