Sorry for what i have written but...

[J Maruti]

i have been visiting this site (i mean javacert.com/discussion, almost all of us here are from javascert.com/discussion (my assumption)) for quite sometime.
one trait i have noticed is questions are picked from the certification books and posted here for explanation of the results.
questions are repeated several times (sometimes irritatingly, i am very sorry to say this). i think there should a FAQ for these questions so time is not wasted. b4 posting one should go thru the faq and if the question is not found then only it should be posted.
my two cents.
i am not trying to hurt anybody. this is my genuine opinion.

[ShreeDevi]

JM
Some of the cert books have so many errors. sometimes we feel the answer is definitely wrong. This is the only place where we can discuss and clarify our doubts.
Do the copyright laws allow anyone to pool a whole lot of questions from a book and provide answers for them?
Moreover this is a discussion and people express their opinions, may not be perfect answers.

[Jim Yingst]

I agree that a FAQ would be very helpful, and I know Tony has said as much back on javacert as well. It's something I've been meaning to start up myself, but probably not this week. Naturally if someone else wants to start one I wouldn't object. I think once we get something going and have a public place to put it (I assume Paul would put it up here for us, or show one of us how to) then there would be a lot of people who could contribute to it.
As far as copyrights are concerned, I don't think we could list a bunch of copyrighted questions, but we could certainly provide a listing that says, for example, that in Roberts/Heller/Ernest pp. 192-3 questions 1 & 2 all answers are wrong because none of the methods return a float like they're declared to. More commonly, we have a lot of questions posted that we don't know where they're from. We'd need to try to weed out the known copyrighted questions, and actual test questions, but there are many others that are publicly available. And many of the questions come in many slightly different versions - I'd like to have one section on say, garbage collection, that discusses the most common issues, rather than reprinting all 250 different poorly-worded variations on the same basic questions. It would take some time to compile certainly, but we could just keep adding to it.
In addition to "Frequently Asked Sample Test Questions", there should probably be stuff like "Useful Suggestions For Posting on JavaRanch in General" and also "Useful Suggestions for Posting About Java Certification". Stuff like how to use CODE tags to make your code readable here, and which forums to use for what (don't put everything under "Programmer Certification"), and don't ask too many questions in one post, and use meaningful subject lines, and don't post questions from the actual test, and don't just post a test question without saying what you think the answer is or why you're confused about it, and a bunch of other things I can't think of right now.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be working hard right now, so I'll leave you now with those thoughts, and hopefully later I'll make something more organized out of them. Or someone else will. Once we have a start, I think a lot of people could contribute to something like this.

[paul wheaton]

I'm happy to host something, although I'm not sure how to work that out.
I think it would be a big help if people would simply reveal where they got the question with each question. Then, if someone had a question, they could search for the author name and some key words from the question to find discussion on the question. For this to work, it would also help if people would carefully key the question in exactly.
As for copyright, I think copying the question from anywhere without specifically mentioning the source is a violation of copyright.
So maybe this is a "two birds with one stone" kind of thing.
We are all using advanced operating systems. We should all be able to have a text file open where we have carefully written out the name of the book and the author so we can quickly cut and paste.
Taking this crazy idea one step further, perhaps our valiant moderators could have a canned message that says something to the effect of "I'm sure you are aware that posting material from another source without giving credit to the source and author is in violation of copyright. This is probably just an oversight and I'm sure you will edit your message or reply to this thread with the appropriate information. I'll respond to your question now assuming that you will make the appropriate changes."
Well, that's a little wordy, but I'm sure Jim and Tony will come up with something short and sweet.
I can post a message at the top of the forum if it will help. Maybe "If you need help with a particular mock exam question, be sure to list the source and the author of that question, and provide the question EXACTLY."
Thoughts?

[Tony Alicea]

That would be good:

"I can post a message at the top of the forum if it will help. Maybe "If you need help with a particular mock exam question, be sure to list the source and the author of that question, and provide the question EXACTLY."

[ShreeDevi]

Tony, Jim, JM, Paul,
An FAQ of all the questions that appeared in discussions would be a feast for javacert aspirants.
Well, no one will need to shell out money to buy any books for the sake of mock exams.
I would say most of the questions in the famous cert books have been discussed.
Will this make Brogden, Mughal, R&H and Boone happy???
Well, I am not against the idea of pooling the questions, but, the authors too must be having copyrights similar to "SUN"!!