Hi Guys,
I am going to repeat what many guys have already said.
About the exam
---------------
1. No trick questions.
2. I did not get any Socket & MediaTracker questions.
3. IO - 3 questions
Thread - 3 questions
Inner Classes - 2 questions
Event Handling - 5 questions
Collections - 1 question
GridBagLayout - 1 question
Garbage Collection - 2 questions
Fill in type - 5 questions
4. I took 1 hours 55 minutes to finish the exam.
( Many questions had a lot of code to read
or I was slow & careful or both }
5. No questions on the method signatures
(Except IO class construction and ofcourse, main method)
Learning
Java -------------
I spent 3 months learning Java before even thinking
about taking the exam.
I read "Core Java I" and "Core Java II"
by Cay S. Horstmann & Gary Cornell.
Spent a lot of writing code using AWT & Threads etc.
Exam Preparation
----------------
I spent 6 weeks preparing for the exam.
(6 weeks might sound less, but you won't believe
the amount of time I spent on the exam preparation books and
mock exams. Lot of hard work and no sleep)
I read the following books.
1. The complete Java 2 Certification guide
by Roberts, Heller & Ernest (RHE in short)
2. Java 2 Exam Cram by Bill Brogden.
I have done all the mocks which are listed at
http://www.javaranch.com/mock.html and
http://www.javaranch.com/maha/_Mock_Exams/_mock_exams.html Some of the mocks more than once.
I read RHE for the second time in the last week of preparation.
This time, things made a lot more sense and took a lot less time to
read.
Tips
----
1. while doing the mock exams, after finishing,
go back and check all the questions, not only the questions you got wrong.
2. while reading a question be careful about what the question asks
is it "select legal answers" or "select illegal answers"
3. do as many mocks as possible
4. prepare "Certification notes" of your own. Nothing is better than writing and reading
your own words.
5. Visit
www.javaranch.com often and try to answer the questions too.
OK. Enough Said.
Thank you Tony,Maha,Ajith,Paul and everybody.
All the best.
- Srini
I feel glad when people say they really took it seriously and studied hard. 
