Hi all...
Howdy !!! I passed !!! Very happy now !!!
Thanks
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I wish to give some comments on the exam for would-be certified programmers and also on the exam overall. But 1st of all I wish to thank :
1)Javaranch creators for the great ranch (website) that they had created. This is the place I got to meet some sheriffs and ranch hands apart from some greenhorns like me.
2)Kathy for her good advices... steering lost souls to the correct paths.
3)Dan for his good if not great questions.
Tips for would-be certified programmers
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The clock starts ticking time away when the
testing program displays the “Certification Candidate Pre-Test Agreement”. To me, this is not very fair. If you were to really read the agreement, which is about 6 pages long on an A4 paper, it would take away much of your precious time. Furthermore, this agreement requires you to answer about 4 yes-I-agree-no-I-don’t-agree questions. There is a copy of this agreement at Sun’s website, and read it before you take the test. However, I do not know whether this copy is EXACTLY the same as the one presented in the exam. Even though I had read the copy on the website, I had wasted a few minutes doing some speed-reading on the agreement.
When there is long code snippet for a question, they will ask you to click the “exhibit” button. When you click that button, a new window will pop up. The question with the possible answers will be at the background window whereas the code snippet will be on a separate window “on top” of the background window. In other words, there are 2 windows overlapping each other. (This is all too usual even for a notice Ms Windows user) CAUTION 1 : Sometimes, the code snippet window hides part of the answers. Be careful. Do move the code snippet window around. CAUTION 2 : You would think that when you want the answer-options window to be in front (because you do not want to see the code snippet anymore), you can just click “anywhere” on the “blank space” of the answer-options window to bring it up front. Yes you can, but there is a “side-effect” of this action that you need to be aware of : You may accidentally selected an answer which you did not mean to select. Clicking “anywhere” on the “blank space” of the answer-options window do not ONLY bring the answer-options window up-front but sometimes this single click also chooses an answer. Make sure you glance at your answers (to double check) for a second prior to clicking the “next” button.
Comment - Questions are not good
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Even though I had passed the
SCJP exam, I must say that, in my humble opinion, it is not a very good exam. The software architect of the project that I am working on told me this : “questions on whether a code is compilable should be directed to the compiler and not the human developer/programmer !” I agree with him. I would rather let the compiler tell me whether my code is able to compile instead of cracking my head and eyes looking for every possible missing words etc. In short checking syntax is not the job of the HUMAN programmer. (ok, maybe it is a minor part of the programmer’s job, but still a major part of the compiler’s job) What a programmer needs to know is how to correct an incorrect code BASE ON THE ERROR MESSAGE THE COMPILER THROWS to the programmer. As such, I think it is not very wise to ask whether this piece of code is compilable or not. The exam should be asking questions like “this code will cause the compiler to issue error message at line XX. What/Which is the solution ? OR What/Which is the cause of the problem? ”
Next step.
What should be my next step ? SCJDeveloper or SCWebComponentDeveloper or something else ? Pls advice. Thanks !
By the way, I passed with a better-than-average score although not a great score.
