hello fellow-ranchers

i cleared da scjp-exam wid 93% today !!

(to be precise , 10 hours back , actually i had to move to da capital for exam , so it took me dis long to share wid u )
Trapped 55 cows out of 59 .
Here r sum of my exp , which may help u
( am open to any kind of queries u hav , excpet for da original questions )
NO OF Qstns,i got : Declaration n acess control 5
Flow control & exceptions 7
Operator n assignments 7
Lang fundamentals 6
GC 1
OOPs 8
threads 7
awt 6
lang 5
io 5
util 2
i lost 1 question in each of foll :
- io( about FileInputStream constructor )
- util( about ArrayList properties)
- flow-control ( i donno )
- operators ( i donno )
TYPE of Qstns : 15-16 More than one choice ( it was told , how many correct ans to chosse )
1 Type-in-da-box type
Rest , single choice
At least 38-40 questions were accompnied with code , but :
For 5-6 qstns ( almost all from Threads ) , code-lines == 25-32
For 11-13 qstns , code-lines == 14-16
for rest , code-lines<14
Other-observations :
-All questions from IO , were based on constructors
-From AWT , except one q( which was from event handling) , rest were from Layout managers
-Thread question require reading n re-reading to get hold of

-Qstns n answer's wording is very very clear , no vague statements like some mocks
-The type-in question wanted me to type value of some
string , i used double-quotes(") ( like "javaranch" ) , and this answer was considered correct.
-At least 4 questions about Inner n Anonymous classes
-Almost all qstns from operators , flow-control , threads , lang fundamentals were accompnied wid code.
-Try to be calm always , tho i had restless moments in bween , but i tried best to be clam , and dat helps.
Very easily , completed da exam in 65 minutes , properly concentrating on each question . Rest of the time i used for review again n again till end .
Books used : -Programmers Guide to Cert ,by Khalid A Mughal ( 2 readings , except for IO chapter , for which i didnt had time )
-Java Lang Specification 2nd ed ( Only chap 8 n 9 complete , rest chap only imp-parts n examples , dont miss any examples )
-Sun's
Java Tutorial ( for introductory purpose to everything)
Final-reading Notes :
-Velmurugan Periasamy's Notes ( gr88888 notes , complete coverage of imp points , i just had da time for first 7 chapters , but recommened u all of it )
Others :
- API Documentation
- Maha anna's discussion archives(www.javaranch.com/mahaanna ) ( must do , interesting points discussed here)
- IBM's IO Tutorial , coverage is same as khalid's 18 chapter , but it's presentation style is good.
- Discussed doubts at javaranch n
www.jchq.net -
Mock-tests Given As usual me running all da time

, so hadn't got enough time for many mocks , but i gave da foll :
14sept Hardest-test 63% (12 out of 19)
16sept Khalid-Mock 71%
17sept MarcusGreen-1 90%
19sept GuoqiaoSun-3 85%
20sept RHE-Tester 94%
20sept MarcusGreen-2 90%
20sept BillBrodgenApplet 92% ( 35 out of 38)
20sept Jarwoski'sApplet 81% ( 81 out of 100 , rest 58 skipped)
21sept MarcusGreen-3 93%
21sept GuoqiaoSun-1 90%
21sept GuoqiaoSun-2 85%
Javaranch Rules Roundup - 88% - 100% all-da-time
I learned at-least 4-5 new things from each mock .So , I recommened u to go through some more quality mocks if time permits. Write down da questions u missed , and review missed questions one day before da exam , it helped me.
Plan-for-preparation : Originally i am a C-language student , had done few projects with C lang but no experince with Java , except for 4-5
servlets i written in Java . So i had to learn Java-lang from scracth almost , i set da target of 5-6 weeks for this due to my time constraints
So wht i did was , introduced myself to da things from Sun's Java tutorial , along wid reading da same topics from khalid , n JLS . I 'll write down all da points i had doubt wid , and will write code to
test those points or discuss them at javaranch. I wrote code for almost every topic , but for OOPS-concepts , and Threads i had to write losta code to convince myself.
Also had look at prevously written java-code , dat helps. No other special technique i adopted , just trying to clear as-many of my doubts as i culd , worked

For first 2 weeks , i put very less time just 3 hours a day , but then i realized n improved to 4-5 . But actual hardwork i done was in last 10 dayz , putting upto 7-8 hrs a day.
so My Advice :
-Put in as much time as u can
-Write as much code as u can
-Discuss doubts as much as u can , and answering to others doubts is a learning-exp in itself.
Acknowledgements My heartly thanks goes to all da fellow ranchers , who always been prompt for help , just to name few :
Ashik uzzaman , Swati bannore , Vanitha Sugumaran , leena rane, Angela narain ,Jose Botella
, Jane Grishti ,Ragu Sivaraman , Guoqiao Sun , Sandeep Desai , Ashok Khetan
and rest all fellow-ranchers
Special Thankx to Guoqiao Sun , Marcus Green , Bill Brodgen n Jammie Jarwoski , for putting in there valuable time to design gr8-mocks n sites.
Thankx to Maha Anna , for putting up gr8 resources links , and discussion archives
Thankx to author of KAM-book , JLS , n Sun's Java Tutorial.
Thankx to folks' at IBM for gr8 work about IO tutorial.
Thankx to creater n maintainer of
www.javaranch.com n
www.jchq.com Last , but not da least , my special thankx to da designer , developer of Javaranch Rules roundup Game. I liked it so much , n got stuck into playing it again n again . Idea of Trapping cows as u go along answer qstns is so imaginative n jus unmatched , n implementation is so complete.. And it boosted my moral all-da-time entitling me to 88 to full 100%

. Love thy game .
And Thank u all out there who are for da cause !
Plan to hunt for job next , n after getting one , n after sum experinece , i plan to go for SCWCD & IBM's XML certifications.( just plans yet

). For now , i hav to learn
J2EE platform .
( so i be here on javaranch , all-da-time )
Good Luck to everyone !

u r not alone

---------
(int)Math.ceil(2.5) cheers to myself !
Gagan.