Today, I passed the
SCJP 1.4 exam. Here's some details of my background and resources used:
Java background: 3 college Java courses
Time invested: 4 months of average of 3 to 4 hours day-by-day preparation
Certification guides: K & B read twice cover to cover.
Mock exams: Dan's, Valentin's, Marcus Green's, free Sun's web tests
Other resources: javaranch.com forum, JLS, JVM specs, JavaCertificate.com, Sun news letters, javaranch.com news letters, Round Up races, Deitel & Deitel "Java How to Program"
Three nights before the big day I took K&B's MasterExam the first time and scored 95%. Bonus was 93%. I also did MG's 1.4 and scored 100%.
Two nights before the exam, I crammed through K&B (Summaries and exam watches).
One night before: did nothing at all.
Despite a rather high score (96 %), I'm not under impression that the
test was easy. It started with about 6
thread questions out of the first 10 that contained code snippets. That forced me to mark 3 or 4 of them and move over. Also, at that point I realized that the trip wouldn't be as easy as I expected. I had managed to make three full passes through the questions before I hit the buzzer. Be on watch for tricky Thread and GC questions (they are
not exactly the same as K&B's). Knowing Math class in and out helps too. I made 2 mistakes in the areas where I thought I was concrete solid:
--Flow Control, Assertions, and Exception Handling;
--Overloading, Overriding, Runtime Time, and OO
Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank you very much, Kathy and Bert, for you fabulous preparation tool, for maintaning this wonderful web site, and for being available to answer certification questions.
I'm also very greatful to Dan on making his intricate collection of smart questions. My being able to score low 90-s on his mocks has become a key to success.
My very special words of thanks go to Thomas Paul, who has always returned quick responses to my questions thus clarifying any doubts, and Marlene Miller, whose willingness to help on this forum has become a legend.
Also, thanks all who've participated in the forum discussions making a difference!
[ November 10, 2003: Message edited by: Vad Fogel ]