Passed SCJP 5 - 80%

[Peter Mularien]

I passed the SCJP exam (woohoo).

I did about as well as I thought I would, and my worst area was (as I expected) API contents -- 50%, which is basically rote memorization.

Considering I spent a total of about 1.5 weeks (part-time) studying, I'm pretty happy, and it was a good exercise in reinforcing language fundamentals that don't come into play a lot when you're doing application development.

For materials, I didn't buy the K&B book, nor did I purchase any mock exams. I did take the free Sun assessment a couple times, and it did a good job of showing me which areas I needed to brush up on. I also used the "Inquisition" exam, which had a number of very good questions as well. Between the two of these, I was able to tailor my learning to focus on the areas where I was weakest.

Beyond the freely available exams, I studied basically from the Java Language Specification, and with lots of experimentation, first within Eclipse, and then from the command line (to prove to myself that I could remember some details without assistance).

Of course I also enjoyed reading the questions in the SCJP forum here, which were helpful reminders and pop-quizzes as I progressed. Thanks everyone!

[Peter Mularien]

Oh, and I forgot to say - my biggest complaint about the exam is that I simply cannot believe that you are not able to go back and review your drag-and-drop questions! Completely ridiculous - I don't know if I missed that in the exam instructions, but they really should tell you that once you move on from one of these questions, you can't even review your answers again without clearing them

[Bing Qiao]

Congratulations!

I simply cannot believe that you are not able to go back and review your drag-and-drop questions!

That is really a shame! I was astonished when I realized I had to redo the whole question or nothing.

I tentatively tried one of those, and basically gave up on reviewing the rest of drag-drop questions that I was not sure of.

[Vassili Vladimir]

Congrats

[Kelvin Chenhao Lim]

Congratulations, Peter! It's extremely impressive that you got such a high score without going through the K&B book. That's definitely a testimony to your very high level of Java proficiency!

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

The forum is indeed helpful, isn't it.

Congratulations. SCJP is a tough exam, and you got a killer score!

-Cameron McKenzie