I just passed the
scjp exam yesterday and was hoping to contribute something as payback for the great advice I received here.
First of all, I wasn't sure if there was a demand out there for scjp 5.0 specific preparation notes, but I have a 11 pages of organized 9pt font notes in
Word format that I'd be willing to contribute if they could be useful to someone. They could probably use about an hour of editing from a real guru, but I think they are decent. I basically copied all of the applicable API methods that could (and did) appear on the
test, and appended notes to them. Then I added bullet notes from the K+B two-minute drill notes that weren't second nature to me. Finally, I added bullet notes from the question reviews for mock exams questions I (sometimes repeatedly) got wrong. I won't be insulted if there are a lot of notes available out there and no one wants mine.
My only exam tip is with regards to the drag and drop questions. You MUST mark any incomplete drag and drop questions for review later. I made a grave error on the test: on my first pass through, I only answered 2/3 of the drag and drop questions, only to find at the end, there was no way to tell which ones I had answered and which ones I left incomplete! On the Whiz Labs mock exams, it showed all questions that are incomplete, but on the real test, it only shows the multiple choice Q's that are incomplete (not the drag and drop ones). So I had to guess on which drag and drop questions I had completed, ERASING my previous answers and reanswering Q's if I had already answered them. I probably should have read more saloon notes regarding this. At least now I can claim that I would have gotten higher than the 77% that I did get!
Finally, I wanted to offer encouragement and a point of comparison for others. I hadn't written any
Java code for 3 years before the exam (I became a high school teacher). I read the Head First Java book, then decided to take the exam, reading the K+B SCJP book and taking Whiz Labs mock exams. About 4.5 weeks total studying full time. I failed both mock exams available with the K+B book, and I failed 3 Whiz Labs exams and just barely passed one with a 65%. I actually got a 51% on a Whiz Labs exam just 2 days before I took the real exam, but I still ended up with a 77% on the real exam. I wouldn't count on the real exam being a lot easier than the mock exams, but don't get discouraged by repeatedly failing the mock exams.