Hi Ranchers,
I made it today, I am very satisfied, I got the scores immediately after the exam. It confirmed what I already thought of myself: very good on concepts, lazy, lazy code analyzer.
My experience in IT is of 4 years, with 2,5 years in programming of wich about 2 years
java and
ejb and 6 months C. At the time of the exam I haven't been consistently coding java for about 6 months.
I got 100% at all parts regarding knowledge of how things work, though I got catched by things like a damn 4 lines for(int i=0....) statement with a print(i) outside of loop
which I remembered immediately after, while wondering why so small score at section2: flow control, assertions and exceptions? Shame on me for this.
I did not have a very good sleep (although I wasn't stressed), and this also influenced my concentration, especially on analyzing.
I finished all in 90 mins, but the remained 30 mins were pretty tight for a complete review (including the marked questions, about 6), so I passed the second time over some questions without descovering those obvious things like vars out of scope.
-at least 15-20 questions have tricks;
-around 20 questions are basics and staight;
-around 10-15 questions have code; the code is never more than 10-15 lines, easy to read, you won't get complicated lines of code but often there will be some trick;
What i remember (maybe not properly categorized):
- When you see some inheritance watch carefully the overriding, at least 3 tricky questions;
- Short code, bad code(about 5 questions): mostly vars out of scope, static code calling nonstatic vars or methods, unallowed type conversions, arrays over length, bad return types etc;
- Fundamental classes(about 5 questions): dream the constructors, know the principal methods like abs() and round().
- Threads (about 8-10 questions): no chance if you don't understand how things work, all
thread states and what changes them, all about locks. Quite easy questions excepting two short but tight formulated.
- read carefully the assertion tutorial, it shold be enough (2 questions);
- read carefully the equals and hash code tutorials (2-3 questions);
- the exceptions seem to be everywere, at least 6-8 questions as I recall
- know all about what a loop could legally get in the declaration part, ie: for (xxx;xxx;xxx), while(xxx) (1 question)
- 1 or 2 switch constucts, not difficult;
- be carefull at shortcut operators, what statement gets executed and what not, (at least 2 questions)
- know the 4 principal interfaces in the collections framework (Collection, Set, List, Map) and the principal classes implementing them (ArrayList, HashMap, HashTable) - about 2-3 questions
Final words:
I wouldn't even need to directly expose any of the questions.
I found at least 20 questions (30%) being more or less identical to what you can get around; another 10-15 questions were very, very close;
My preparation took around 2 months, but only for the last 2 weeks I spent some consistent effort;
The only book I used (one year ago) was Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java, (good theory, sometimes not straight examples).
I also read:
- Sun's tutorial on assertions
- Anna Maha's equas and hashcodes
- Khalid Mughal's Thread chapter
- Used many times Java Language Specifications regarding operators, threads, the Creation and Destruction of Objects.
- Constantly used the Java Api for documentations on Classes and methods, when explanations were not consistent went back to JLS.
I took about 40-50 mocks, all found on the Ranch.
I took twice the Dan's and Marcus' mocks, the first time to discover my weakneses and find where to dig, in the beginning of my preparation, and the second time in the last week before the
test. The increasing was about 25%. They put you on the right way.
Other mocks I took:
RoundUp Rules of JavaRanch, Jiris, Jxam, Jexpert, J@Whiz(trial), Jcertify6(trial),Sun's sample, Valentin Cretaz's mocks, and maybe other I don't remember now.
I also watched closely JavaRanch forums.
I got a good score, so I thing it works this way.
Depending on what is your target in terms of score:
- Dan's exams are like learning to speak; if you can cursively make them you wil get at least 60-70%;
- Marcus' exam go much closer to the question format and even the contents; you get at least 10-20% more from them.
- But you need also VARIETY, combiantion of topics, exam like format, traps, catches, explanations, so ALL the others are REALLY PRICELESS for a complete preparation.
Before test:
- Anna is right, if you aim high, don't go if you don't start getting CONSTANTLY over 90 on all mocks.
- HAVE A GOOD REST BEFORE THE TEST, a relaxed brain works better;
- Do your needs before the test
At the test:
The only let's say aid that I could add to what others already said is:
Write down on the paper that they give you:
- variables outside scope
- nonstatic vars called from static context
- invalid constructor
- invalid return types
when you review the test (if you have enough time) take the paper and try to figure out for each statement if there applys. The most traps are on these topics.
I hope I didn't miss many things, anyway you guys are welcome to add your comments and completions.
That's all.
My deepest thanks and consideration to all those mentioned in this post and others not mentioned, by their names or by their mocks or resources they made freely available for us.
And For the Ranch, Yeah, That's the Right Place!
cheers
