So it's my turn to write one of these!

I passed today with 88%.
I agree with those who thought it was not nearly as tricky as some of the practice tests, or some of the obscure questions floated around here. I think if you work through the more difficult mocks (Applied Reasoning, Khalid, Brogden Hardest Questions) carefully, and understand the issues in those questions, regardless of your score, and if you can field some of the questions around here, you are amply ready to pass the
SCJP.
This site just does a terrific job in getting people ready for the
test. For me in particular the influence of JavaRanch couldn't be overstated, because my background isn't really in programming (except a little web scripting) and it was so critical for me to see, how are programmers thinking about the language and these questions? What kinds of questions are they asking? When I first got here I was totally overwhelmed, and bit by bit (I've been here 2 months? 3 months?) I got the hang of things. Without this forum I might have given up, but by the time I finished the test, I was completely cool and confident - and surprised I got so many wrong! Not to mention that the atmosphere is so pleasant here, and the moderators so helpful.
Okay, so - 1 on gridBag. At least 3 I/O -one sockets, one on FilterInputStream, which I asked about yesterday

, one on encoding, maybe another I forgot. 2 on GC (I don't know which I missed there), and the famous MediaTracker question. RHE gives you all you need to know on that, although if you're paranoid, read p.439-447 of Marty Hall's Core Web Programming

.
Like I said, I started from scratch so take my studies with a grain of salt. I read:
- Learn
Java on the Macintosh, Barry Boone (good book)
- Sun's Online Tutorial, Volume I and the Swing and Collections tutorials
- the Java section of Marty Hall's Core Web Programming
- Thinking in Java, version 2 (my favorite, great section on collections)
- RHE
- Exam Cram (twice)
The second time I read the exam cram I stopped after every chapter and sent all the key terms from that chapter though the Ranch search engine, to see what questions other people had on those. I recommend studying that way, that was the best for me.
Okay, enough yapping, I'm going to go write some
applets that screw around with my friend's database.
One last thing - if anyone knows of a user group/ association/ whatever in New York City for Java folks, could you let me know? My email should be accessible at the top or
here. Thank you.
Thanks again to everyone, this was a great experience and a big moment for me.

Eric B.