Prep Advice SCJP 1.4

[Philani Dlamini]

Hello Everyone

This is my frist post in this forum, I've been reading quite frequently for alsmost a month now.

I've just finished reading the Complete Java2 Certification guide(4th edition by Heller & Roberts) and did the 100 questions at www.javacerticate.com.

Can anyone verify if this site is any good in terms of the intensity of the questions/level of difficulty compared to the actual exam.
The Marcus Green "question of the day" has been very helpful.

Im in South Africa(Application Developer), recently ordered the K&B book
(I have to wait for 15 business days b4 it arrives).

I'll probably write in July once I've

- finished the K&B book
- finished with http://danchisholm.net/july21/topic/index.html
- done the K&B Mock

Can anyone advise me on any additional prep for the exam.
Tnx

[Edwin Keeton]

The only thing I would add is to do as many mock exams as you can. There are many good, free exams available as well as some reasonably priced commercial exam simulators that may provide some useful feedback.

Not only do you need to have a fairly broad knowledge of the Java language, you also need to be mentally prepared, through practice, for the types of questions you can expect, and the intentionally indirect way some of them may be asked.

[Kalyani Marathe]

I think it will be good to have K&B book. You are then ready to go. It is the best book to prepare for exam.

[Prabhat Tripathi]

I took java 1.4 exam recently. Looking at your preparation, I would think you should do well. A few tips though:
- do not get dejected if you didn't do well on some mock test. many of them are at greater difficulty level than actual exam. Marcus mock exams are the best in terms of difficulty levels.
- many mock exams have several trick questions. I didn't feel there were any trick questions in real exam(exect things like (if (a = b); if (a) etc).
- refresh Wrapper classes apis(ctors, valusOf, get ...)
- a number of questions on threads...make sure you know what behavior is guaranteed and what's not by specification(read Thread/Object class api)
- all the best

Yoda.

[Marcus Green]

I agree with Someone Somewhere (well it was inevitable really). The real exam does not try to "trick you". They put a great deal of effort into ensuring the meaning of the question is clear. However it may trail some false friends however. For example it might show you something that is plausible in C++ but not appropriate in Java.

[ken ren]

I took SCJP exam today and My score is 91. I think if you do not want to waste your time and menoy, you should buy a K&B book and do every self-test again and again utill you know why this answer is correct and other answer are wrong. By the way ,you can play "JavaRanch Rule Round-up Game" http://www.javaranch.com/game/game2.jsp. It is easy to detect your weakness.
1. "Complete Java2 Certification guide(4th edition)" is a little out of date.
2. http://danchisholm.net/july21/topic/index.html is too difficult unless you have enough time and want to get very high score.
3. www.javacerticate.com. is helpful and difficult level is almost same as easy questions in SCJP exam . I just did 100-question and have not do 400-question.

[Philani Dlamini]

Hi guys

What a wealth of info/advice, I'll be making a print-out of this page.
Ive tried the rules roundup game......(very nice)
& Marcus your questions are excellent no doubt


Thank you everyone

[Kedar Dravid]

If time permits, make sure you go through Enthuware's mock exam package.

[Philani Dlamini]

Hi Kedar

Do you know have a URL for these, what makes these any good?