Questions about Coffee Crams

[Mike Gershman]

I finished the HFS Coffee Cram for chapter 5 and found several questions based on information not in chapters 1-5 of the book. This is at least true of questions 8, 11, and 12.

I noticed references in the answer pages to "servlet spec" and "servlet v2.4". Are these both references to the 330 page Java Servlet Specification version 2.4?

Does this Coffee Cram assume we have completed reading assignments in these or other documents? Are we supposed to answer these questions open book(s)?

Searching this BB for "Coffee Cram", I didn't find these issues covered previously. Am I the nth student to encounter these questions or did I miss something really obvious?

Thanks

[alzamabar]

There is only one big truth about the HF series. The books are a help, a big help if you want, because these are written with as focus the exam, but in the early pages of the HF JSP, for instance, it's clearly stated that some necessary material for the exam includes the Serlvet spec 2.4, the JSP 2.0 and the JSTL 1.1 specs from Sun. The books are a big help, but these don't cover everything, and the answer to your question is: adapt yourself, don't pretend from the authors the answers to all your needs, and accept human mistakes, as the book has been written by humans likely with very strict deadlines. If you were asked a question that you didn't encountered yet (we all passed through this, believe me) just accept it, and consult the specs to find the answers you need. 99,9999999% of the times, the answers are there.

Good luck with your exam.

[Mike Gershman]

Marco:

Thank you very much for for your valuable comments.

HFS page xxvi says "You should have a copy of the specs, although you do not need them to pass the exam". I thought that the material in HFS was self-contained for purposes of mastering basic servlet/JSP programming and for passing the SCWCD exam.

I also thought that the chapter Exam Cram tests were closed book, so I should not be looking up answers in the specs.

If I have this all wrong, I'd like to know it so that I can use the book more effectively.

[Bert Bates]

Hey Mike -

I think there are a very few places where Bryan and Kathy and I had a disconnect between what was on the exam, what was in the chapters, and what made it to the coffee crams. I'm checking with Bryan and Kathy to see if they might have a list of those disconnects. The book was meant to be self contained, we just didn't do a perfect job of that :roll:

When we make a spec reference or a reference to another book, those are meant to be additional, optional information, and those references are always for materials that were used as references when creating the actual Sun exam.

HTH, Bert

[P. Dunn]

Originally posted by Bert Bates:
Hey Mike -
I think there are a very few places where Bryan and Kathy and I had a disconnect between what was on the exam, what was in the chapters, and what made it to the coffee crams. I'm checking with Bryan and Kathy to see if they might have a list of those disconnects.
HTH, Bert

Here's some disconnects that burned me:
Q6 p561 compare to statement bottom of p.544 findAncestorWithClass
Q7 p672 Dynamic attributes not covered in text
Q7 p613 relevance of http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page not covered
Q12 p615 xmlns attribute xmlns="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page" not covered
Q9 p613 <resource-ref> DD element not covered in text

I have not yet done mock exam.