Hi All,
So finally after a long wait, i am now a
SCJP and yes i have given the exam. i scored 93% marks i.e. 57 out of 61 correct.Though i am happy about this score but i was hoping 100% and prepared for SCJP with that figure in mind.. but anywyas i hope thats not bad too.
So i would like to say thanks to all you javaranch community and for kathy and bates for a great book and also for making this site...
As i am just out of the
testing centre, so i would like to tell my experiences. First of all this was the second time i went for the exam... no i didnt failed in the first attempt but the servers of prometric centre was down.. so plan for thesetypes of things as well...
2. There were some surveys before the exam and it was good to take those surveys as they take some nervousness out of u... but what exactly the weird part was that the survey was about centre like how is seating arrangement, lighting, proper infrastrucure and stuff like that.. so ideally that should have been at the end. but anywyas so this is the way it started.
3. Then came the real test and i must say that it was harder then expected atleast the part on Threads and Garbage collection and thats the part where i got my only four wrong answers. In all other objectives, i have got 100%. but i think it depends on ur luck as well, the questions are asked from a database of questions and if u lucky then u will be asked less questions from these objectives... but as for me i got about 10-12 questions from these objectives only and i got 4 wrong.Perhaps for me these were the hardest topics, not because they are difficult or sumthing but because one can make any number of trickier questions from these objectives... and yeah, before i submitted the exam for grading, i was expecting that 4 questions i have attempted might be wrong and luck didnt favored me over there as well.
4. I completed my exam in 80 minutes and the rest of the time i was reviewing all the questions again and this time was very crucial as i easily found out 4-5 questions which were answered wrongly by me earlier. so like testing stage is very imp in SDLC, i will say Reviewing stage is very imp for SCJP.
4. About my preperations, i started out with book by Khalid Mughal and it is indeed a great book and some topics are just simply amazing in that book but as i was preparing for 1.4 version so i got a Kathy Sierra & bates book and i must say that it is one of best books and it just tells u everything what u need to know for the exam. So after reading these books i went on for mocks, I did lots and lots of mock exams but i saved some of the mocks for last week
For a list of Mocks, i refered to
www.levteck.com as the mocks there are based on the level of difficulty and i make my way through them.
5. In the last week, i started doing mocks which i have not done earlier and this includes
a. Marcus Green Mocks... very near to the real exam in terms of difficulty but in threads & garbage collection, they are bit too easy.
b. Master Exams from Kathy & Bates... i gave them as if i was giving the real exam anmd i got about 90-95% marks in those so this is very close to my real score as well..
c.
www.javacertificate.com... have got some good questions section wise and good final test as well...
d. Brodgens Test.... this is a good one as well and i kept the hardest of bill 19 questions for last week.
e. Dan's Mock exams... 'AMAZING' is the
word that i have for these mocks..they are just great and they are difficult as far as real exam is concerned but once u have done these.. then rest is assured. Dont let your spirits down, if u didnt got good marks in Dan's mocks.. these are real brain teasers..
f. JQ Plus: Trial version of JQ plus is good as well just to give u the real feel of the exam...
By giving these many mocks, i made myself confident that time will not be a constraint in real exam..
so this is what i can think of now... may be will add more laterz....
So what next now? can anyone suggest as i dont wanna stop this good habit of studying evryday!!!
Regards,
Harry