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SCJP ambiguities/software ambiguities?!

 
Greenhorn
Posts: 17
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hi all
i have come across many uncertainities as regards SCJP . there r many what should i say - "loopholes" in the exam .
firstly , i noticed many a times the actual percentage doesn't match the percentage being printed on the marksheet .the marksheet contains all the section-wise scores - sometimes all the scores doesn't add up to the total percentage being displayed on the marksheet . infact in some blog in one of the forums i also saw that someone complaining (in distress) that though he/ she got way above the pass percentage - still the marksheet said that he/she failed . i don't know what to decipher out of all this - that sun/the software/ whoever doesn't know how to do a simple addition to display a correct result and look at the irony - it's testing us in one of the most technically advanced tests ! these sort of ambiguities can harass and affect someone's psyche to the extent that you might just lose it -specially for people whose jobs /earnings/mostly everything are dependent on these certs.and u can't blame them the managers make these certs so important that it becomes a do or die situation.

yet another loophole I've come across is regarding the marking and unmarking of questions . i have come across many people (atleast 7- i'm always very specific when it comes to numbers !) who had answered their questions correctly (note my word - correctly)but marked their questions for revision etc and then didn't find time to unmark them or simply didn't feel the necessity to do it . guess what was the penalty they had to pay ?! the database didn't accept their questions though they had answered correctly but didn't unmark them . yeah i know some of u would be having a good laugh thinking who would be that stupid so as to leave the answers unmarked - but i would say nowhere in the beginning of the exam or in any sort of document or even in the voucher all these are mentioned - and technical people DONOT suppose things . if the exam can comprise itself of questions like - rate yourself -novice... intermediate...advanced ...blah blah and even more unnecesary and rather obnoxious questions like can we display your details somewhere else click i agree / i disagree etc etc i guess it would have been far too helpful if the rules and regualtions or what the database takes and what it discards were included in the beginning of the exam .i donot find a genuine reason as to why it is so difficult for sun to include these simple facts about the exam right in the beginning - i mean a simple test includes things like these - i remember even my lower grades exams when our answer scripts were evaluated on a machine we were told specifically what the requirements were - things like questions marked twice won't be accepted , shouldnot mark more than two questions and the likes . either sun is lagging way behind(i know its a tough battle to keep up pace! )or it simply wants more money - so that people take up the exam more and more number of times and eventually learn what needs to be stated right at the beginning of the exam .
good luck all u guys preparing to take up the scjp ....as time goes by we hope to be enlightened and know the other loopholes of the software . mend the damn software !!
 
ranger
Posts: 17347
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Mac IntelliJ IDE Spring
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OK, first you can't average the percentages and expect to get the same percentage as your actual score because each section has a different number of questions, and therefore won't add up.

For example

1/1 = 100%
3/3 = 100%
2/5 = 40%

average of three section by percentage only = 80%

real score

6/9 = 66%

Second, you never know which questions you got right or wrong, so those 7 people who left their questions marked have no idea that those are the questions that they got wrong.

Mark
 
dew foster
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------
Second, you never know which questions you got right or wrong, so those 7 people who left their questions marked have no idea that those are the questions that they got wrong.
-----
>> i agree with u as far as the first point goes - u r sucessful in feeding me a satisfactory answer but i'm not quite sure about the second point .
do u mean to say that even if we leave the answers marked the database will still accept and evaluate the answers .
in any case don't you think in the beginning of the exam these things ought to be made clear . i know i'm harping on the same point but....i don't have a choice !
 
Sheriff
Posts: 14691
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Eclipse IDE VI Editor Ubuntu
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Just to make something clear, the first questions about your level (intermediate/expert...) are not unnecessary questions.
Those are used by Sun to evaluate the difficulty of the exam (an expert having a poor score, or a total beginner having 100%...) That's what I've heard.

I agree with Mark, and believe that the wrong answers were not necessarly the marked ones. I believe marked questions are not considered unanswered, as long as you have selected any answers.

Some people may feel frustrated to fail at the exam and complain for any kind of reasons, that's all.
 
Mark Spritzler
ranger
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Yes, the testing software doesn't care if it is marked or unmarked when grading it. It either has the right answer(s) selected or not and is graded as such.

Mark
 
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