I bought RHE on 20/May/2000 & cleared SCJP2 on 22/June/2000 with 93%. I have FORTRAN, C, OOP, & C++ background. So I was confident I would clear, BUT, the additional 10 - 12% came in due to this ranch. This ranch helped me in clearing a lot of my fundas about
Java as a language.
It was an ordeal because I had to travel for SIX hours in a train with ambient temperature soaring at 44-45 deg C. And had to wait for two hours to get a slot since there were fewer PCs! And to top it all, half an hour into the exam, we lost power (& we were shocked to know there was no UPS for these PCs!!). And had to wait for 45 minutes to get back the power.....& the travel back again....
An anti-climax because the questions were simple & at one point in time I started thinking if it was really worth it to put in four weeks (four hours a day), for clearing this exam......but on an after-thought I think its easy to PASS but to get those additional marks, & importantly clearing ones fundas, one needs good exposure.
At the same time I want to share some of my thoughts:
1. One doesn't have to write code in Java (commercial or otherwise) to clear
SCJP.
2. You don't have to know ALL the fundamentals of SCJP Objectives to clear SCJP exam. Give as many mocks as possible.
3. Questions are not as clear as we think they will be. I read in RHE that they have consulted English Language experts to mitigate any ambiguity in the sentences used in the questions. But I really doubt if these experts were real. I had to fend off atleast EIGHT to TEN sentences which were very ambiguous in the given context.
4. I had to handle atleast ONE question that was a cheeky tricky one which I shall discuss with the moderators. So do READ the questions CAREFULLY.
Will any moderator please give me his/her mail address.
THANKS TO ALL YOU RANCHERS SPECIALLY THE BIG ONES (Ajith, Maha, Jim, Tony, Paul, Madhav, Herbert,........) for seeing me through.
I would also like to know what should be my forward path from here. I am past becoming a Developer now. So I plan for
SCJA skipping
SCJD. Does it sound too weird....any thoughts from BIG ONES?
thanks & regards
-Shiny