cleared with 94%

[atul kashyap]

By grace of God and wishes of my dear ones and my hard work I cleared the exam today and secured 94%.
It took me 2.5 months to prepare (daily 6 to 8 hours on an average). I think I am a slow learner.
I want to thank my family specially my mom and my sis who supported and encouraged me all the time. They always said not to get tense and that I could do it, which gave me the confidence. I love you mom.
Thanks to all the wonderful people who are part of this wonderful site. You all were a great source of help and inspiration.
Sorry, got carried away.
Now the exam:
All the questions were well framed and there was no ambiguity. Fortunately I didn't get the questions in which there doesn't seem to be any right answer - as told by some other people who took the exam.
I finished the exam well before the stipulated time. I took a lot of mock tests (really a lot - more than 25) and I think because of this only I had the practice to concentrate on the questions (look for the error in the code) and do it well before the given time. Lots of questions had the code and you had to tell the output. The code was not too long except in 2 or 3 questions. I got one question in which single word answer was to be given.
Learn these topics well:
1. methods of File class.
2. which IO class can be used in the constructor of which one.
3. remember the unique properties of the IO classes, which others don't possess.
4. should be clear about the functioning of synchronize,start(),join() in Threads.
5. be very very thorough with overriding and overloading.
6. basic nature of the classes and interfaces in Util package.
7. basic nature and properties of the layouts.
8. methods of the Math class.
9. be very thorough about passing by value and passing by reference
10. switch construct
11. should know whether the statement will cause a compile time error or a runtime error

Most important- be "very relaxed" and keep your eyes wide open to catch any error in the code.
While preparing for the exam sit on the machine and do as much coding you can do. Take all the mock tests you can.
The books:
Khalid Mughal is the best book but it's a bit tough, so should be done after doing one of the other certification books e.g. RHE. Exam cram is another good book.
JQ+ is worth its price - it has real good questions.
The site of Mahalakshmi Annadurai (Maha Anna) must be visited. It is a big pool of information and has links to more than 40 "free" mock tests and many other resources. The URL is http://www.javaranch.com/maha/index.html
I hope this information will help our friends (a little bit, if not much) who are preparing for the exam.
Feel free to ask anything.
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A REQUEST TO ALL MY SENIORS :- Please suggest me what should I go for now - Servlets or EJB or JSP or something else.
I am in a fix. What is hot in the market at present and what is going to be in the future??
Please help.

Atul

[Prasanna Wamanacharya]

Congratulations Atul!!! Great score!!!
Prasanna Wamanacharya
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java� 2 Platform

[Vanitha Sugumaran]

Hi Atul,
"Congratulations"
Vanitha.

[rajashree ghatak]

hi atul,
Congrats!!!Excellent score indeed and i think a well deserved one after going thro' ur post.
THANKS for the valuable tips and hope u will be around to help the aspiring SCJPs like me.
a small query i have to which i hope u will reply:did u prepare the various methods of each component class(from java.awt package) in details for the JCP?RHE mentions just a few of them very breifly while Patrick Naughton has given them in details.did u get any Qs relating to these methods in the exam?or just knowing the various constructors of these components would be sufficient?
rajashree.

[atul kashyap]

Thanks to all.
Hi Rajashree, I think there's no need to mug up all the methods in awt. It will be better if you write code and practice. This way you will come to know most of the important methods related to all the components and their functioning too. The constructors are ofcourse important. You should know which component can generate which event.
I didn't get any method specific question. In my question I had to tell the output to the given code - and that you can tell only if you yourself have written lots of code.
You should remember the signature (i.e. return type or the argument they take) of some most used methods.
best of luck
atul

[Jane Griscti]

Congratulations Atul
------------------
Jane Griscti
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java� 2 Platform

[Greg Georges]

I believe that the next logical step is servlets and jsp first, then go on to EJB, JNDI and distributed systems using J2EE. I am not yet SCJP but have worked with all the technologies.
My favorite Java technology is servlets because of its ease of use and love developing e-commerce sites. Servlets are an extension of the server which takes in http requests and sends out responses. JSP on the other hand is good, but try and follow the model 2 architecture of MVC (model view controller). This architecture is 3 tier and lets you seperate the presentation layer from the business logic layer. Therefore, try keep your JSP's java free if possible and either transfer more code to the servle or encapsulate the java logic in tag librairies. I developed a web message forum (much like this one) with JSP and servlets using Tomcat (jsp/servlet container from Jakarta). This prepared me for the next step.
Then try developing EJB's (bean managed and container managed). I use IBM Visualage 3.5 enterprise edition for this. You will see that EJB's are not complex, it only takes a little time to learn how to use the necessary interfaces. JNDI is no longer complex because most enterprise servers do this automatically, basic knowledge of RMI (Remote method invocation) is needed.
Do not stop here, learn XML (a must nowadays) and why not try out the J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) to develop webpages for PDA's and cell phones. Anyways, hope this helps ya out. Have fun!

[atul kashyap]

Thanks Jane and thanks a lot Greg for your advice. It really made the picture a bit clear to me.
thanks a lot
atul