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I passed! Here's my impressions...

 
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Hi all, I've been lurking around here for the past couple of weeks while preparing for the exam. I managed to pass the exam with an 83% yesterday- being a beginning programmer, I was very happy with this score. Anyway, I know that I found posts on this board with people's impressions of the real exam very helpful, so I thought I'd post the same and hopefully it will be helpful to someone:
- Personally, I found the real test harder than the mocks. Not so much because the questions themselves were harder, but becuase when I took mocks, I would check each answer right after I answered the question- this was the best way to make it a learning tool for me. So when I was doing the mocks, I'd get constant reassurance after each question that yeah, I was doing well. Of course in the real exam, you don't get this constant feedback. So I definitely was NOT confident of how I was doing.
- However, I did better on the "real" exam than on the mocks. I attribute this to the fact that on the mock exams, I'd give a question a little thought, then go look up the answer. On the real exam, I went through the questions very slowly, thought about the answers over and over, etc. On my first pass through, I "mark"ed any question that I wasn't absoultely 100% positive about (about half the questions)! Then I went back through the marked questions a second time- I think I changed 2 answers (1 of them I know I changed to the right answer, the other I'm not sure). Even with going through SLOWLY and re-checking about half the test, I finished in about 1 hr. 30 min. So I really recommend taking your time and not rushing.
- I've seen people post that they encountered a bunch of questions on the real test that were basically identical to mock questions. I did not find this to be the case. Same topics, of course; similar questions, of course; but I don't think I had any questions that were exactly (or even almost) the same.
Nonetheless, i think that taking lots and lots of practice tests was VERY instrumental in preparing me for the real thing.

Topics I got:
- 1 question on GridBagLayout (it was a tough one- I had to make an educated guess).
- A few other AWT/layout questions.
- 2 File I/O questions (1 easy, 1 harder)
- 4 or 5 "fill in the blanks". Most were easy, but 1 was a little unclear as to what they wanted you to do- but I think I figured it out and answered it correctly.
- The rest were on pretty typical topics- Threads (nothing too advanced), exception handling (basic knowledge of try/catch/finally), rules of equality (== and equals()) rules of overloading/overriding, etc.
- I've noticed people saying they got a question on "media tracker". I did NOT. I'm very glad because I don't even really know what it is!
[This message has been edited by Katie McCann (edited July 25, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Katie McCann (edited July 25, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Katie McCann (edited July 25, 2000).]
 
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Katie: Congratulations! and thanks for the tips.
 
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Congrats and good luck for your future( SCJD ?? ).

Ajith
 
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CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Your advice would be a real help.
 
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CONGRATS!KATIE,
Nirmala
 
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Hi!
Kate, good score and CONGRATS on completion of SCJP2 exam, thanks for u r vital tips. All the best in u r future career.
Anil.
 
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congrats katie,
It was nice to hear from you the manner in which you took the exams kindly let me know how you prepared for your exams. Also the reference materials you used. Also i am new to this web site.let me know how this helped you out and how long you prepared.
If possible mail me at [email protected]
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