SCJP trick or treat

[David Berkhousen]

How do you get passed this exam? 2 years in J2EE here developing 2 Web Applications. Studied chapters 1 through 8 of "The Java 2 Complete Certification Guide". Did well on all practice exams. Am I the only one who thinks this exam is just a little too tricky?? Failed the exam twice??
[ October 12, 2004: Message edited by: David Berkhousen ]

[Corey McGlone]

David,

A big part of passing the SCJP exam is learning to take the exam. That means you have to get very good at picking up little errors - the sorts of things that you might normally rely on your IDE to do for you. Certainly, you may ask why you need to know such things if the IDE does it for you. Well, to that, my only reply is that this exam is about learning Java syntax, not about learning to program in Java using an IDE. If you want to do that, go on to the SCJD exam.

I would suggest taking as many mock exams as possible. Dan Chisholm has some excellent exams on his site. The more mock exams you take, the better you'll get at "taking the test."

[David Berkhousen]

Originally posted by Corey McGlone:
David,

A big part of passing the SCJP exam is learning to take the exam. That means you have to get very good at picking up little errors - the sorts of things that you might normally rely on your IDE to do for you. Certainly, you may ask why you need to know such things if the IDE does it for you. Well, to that, my only reply is that this exam is about learning Java syntax, not about learning to program in Java using an IDE. If you want to do that, go on to the SCJD exam.

I would suggest taking as many mock exams as possible. Dan Chisholm has some excellent exams on his site. The more mock exams you take, the better you'll get at "taking the test."

Thank you for the response Corey. Your suggestions will be very helpful in this mission that I'm on to pass this exam. Is it possible to take the SCJD, without passing the SCJP first?

[David Berkhousen]

I am interested in the pass fail rate on this exam (SCJP). Anyone interested in sharing there pass/fail experience with me would be helpful in my research.

[Corey McGlone]

Originally posted by David Berkhousen:


Thank you for the response Corey. Your suggestions will be very helpful in this mission that I'm on to pass this exam. Is it possible to take the SCJD, without passing the SCJP first?

The SCJP exam is a prerequisite for the SCJD exam so you must pass this exam before purchasing the voucher for the next one.

As far as the pass/fail rate is, I really have no idea. If you want to do some research, you might try contacting Kathy Sierra - she works with Sun and plays a part in the creation of the SCJP exam(s). You can find her contact information here.

[Kathy Sierra]

Howdy,
Sun does not make the pass/fail rates coderanch, but I *can* say that this is one of the most challenging exams in the industry. For example, I can say that the pass rate for SCJP is much lower than with the MCSD exam. But... a *lot* of people take this exam with almost no studying, simply saying, "Oh, I'm a Java programmer--I shouldn't have any trouble." Almost *nobody* can pass this exam without preparing and studying explicitly for the exam, because it usually covers some aspects of the language that you may not have used in your projects.

But... almost everybody can and *does* pass if they put the effort into preparing, studying, practicing, etc.

So, it's not easy, and a lot of people fail the exam, but among javaranch folks, the pass rates are VERY VERY high--because people here are studying and working hard, where so many people out there are taking the exam without that time or effort, based solely on their experience as a Java programmer.

The exam expects you to know things about the language that may not have come up on your specific projects... for example, a person who learned Java solely to build EJBs may never have even created their own threads!

You're in the right place here if you want to pass the exam--this discussion group will get you through it in good shape

good luck,
Kathy

[Inuka Vincit]

First thing use ^ Kathys Book. Its very good. Like kathy said the exam doesnt have much to do with work experiance.

You cannot take SCJD without taking SCJP. Just get past SCJP, SCJD is much more fun. SCJP is just huge PITA.

I have to disagree with you that SCJP is tricky. I found the real exam had very clear questions and drilled mainly on the basics(and my two experiance lies mainly in hardware). If you want exams that are tricky try the MCP ones, they ask crazy details but dont drill you on the basics.. you need to know almost every single library in the damn thing . .

As others stated above take practice exams, if you pass the Marcus Green one your set.

[Madhu Kumar Vatts]

David,

Its very sad to know that things happened that way. I Wish you best of luck with your future exams. You can do it this time, give a best preperation, and write more practice exams and I am sure you will get ample score way beyond pass score.

Madhu Vattipulusu
____________________
Nothing is Impossible..

[Robert Chisholm]

SCJP means you've read and understand the Java spec. That's about it (although it tests basic OO knowledge). I don't know why any professional who is charging for Java development can get less than 52% -- unless they're relying on frameworks, IDEs, or J2EE containers.

[David Berkhousen]

This exam covers a lot more than just Java basics. Don't mislead the greenhorns Robert. We are not here to be belittled. I think I will try Kathys book just because she was nice to me. I did actually look through it at Borders. Looks like a good book. The book that Sun recommends is not very good. I used the "Java 2 Complete Certification Guide".

[ October 20, 2004: Message edited by: David Berkhousen ]

[ October 20, 2004: Message edited by: David Berkhousen ]

[ October 20, 2004: Message edited by: David Berkhousen ]
[ October 20, 2004: Message edited by: David Berkhousen ]

[Netty poestel]

David

Quote:-"....just because she was nice to me"

I think you will find the book even nicer [or nic�est...extending my superlative]

rookie
Netty

[Richard Quist]

The book is an excellent resource for those willing to take the time to work through it. It also helps to ask, and attempt to answer, questions here.

[James Clarke]

Iam currently reading Kathys book and am near completion. the book specifically prepares you for the exam and the authors quirky sense of humour (nothing wrong with quirky!) has kept me awake when reading some of the drier material.

another good book i am reading is "A Programmers Guide to Java Certification, 2nd edition by Kalid Mughal and Rolf Rasmussen".
This is an excellent book, but its not for the light-hearted as its written in a academic style.

I think both these books together are excellent for SCJP preparation.

[Vijay Haah]

Hey Robert,

I have been a developer for the last one year and what we do in development is trying to get things done. We try various ways to get it done. probably my excellent C++ skills and a little bit of JAVA understanding are helping me to understand the Specs and go for the Big projects.

Frankly we dont care very much about the minute aspects of programming in JAVA in which people try to grill in the certification. For example, try to send a String argument by pass by reference. If you dont know the basic difference between the String and StringBuffer, you wont be able to solve the problem efficiently.

Hence what I think is, If you really want to crack the test, you need to understand it from the SUN's perspective. And what I mean here by cracking the test is, aiming at 100%. It will be a very good booster for your confidence when you want to go for the next level certifications.

Have Fun, Its just a challenging test.

Vijay

[r phipps]

I am just finishing up a Training Class for SJCP. The Book Provided was a Complete Java Certification. I passed The first three weekly test just fine with book. But when i got too week 4 it just wasn't enough so when I went out and bought Kath's Book, and i passed the week 4 test the next night and passed week 5 this week. I am now studying for the final in two weeks, after passing it i will then take the certification. I also found the ranch during week two and found it to be so helpful. I will be so much better prepared to take it because of the Ranch. I found after the week one test that the programming chapters the had us doing in another book, really had verry little to do with what i was preparing for, so decided to skip that part till SJCD part, because of 50 hour work weeks and 15 hours of class time expected. I am also seeing that just passing the SJCP dosen't mean somebody will be a good programmer but does lay a good foundation.
[ October 21, 2004: Message edited by: r phipps ]