What is new in K & B new SCJP 6 book?

[babul bansal]

Hi

The new K & B SCJP 6 book is not available in our area here.
But I have got K & B SCJP 5 book and I have studied that book.

But I want to give SCJP 6 exam.

Can anyone, who has studied SCJP 6 book of K & B, is there anything special or is it very different from their older edition book.
If yes, than what are the additions other than the SCJP 6 objectives?

Thanks

:roll:

[Deepak Bala]

Ideally, there would be no additions other than the SCJP 6 objectives, since the study guide is a no nonsense book targeted at exam takers. You should go through the tutorials online and fill the gap

[Marcus Moreno]

Well, I've read both, the K&B5 and 6 book, so here's my answer:

Both books are 98% identical, with these differences:
- There were a few pages added for Console, NavigableMap and NavigableSet.
In some places the word "Java 5" has been replaced by "Java 6" ( in some places they replaced it, were it doesn't make sense, in others, they did not replace it, were it would have made sense - quite lazy...)
The mock exams seem to have changed quite a bit.

All in all, I think it was good to buy it and to have another read (it's not thaaats expensive anyway...) -
E.g. they wrote some stuff about NavigableSet/ Map and Console, I would have left it otherwise.
...but I wish they would have worked a bit more on the conversion from 5 to 6 - seems a bit rushed.

[Ankit Garg]

even the authors say in the beginning that there's not much difference between SCJP 5.0 and 6.0. So I changed my mind from 5.0 to 6.0, bought the 6.0 book and now I am preparing for that.....

The book also says that anyone going for SCJP 5.0 must go for 6.0 as there's not much of a difference... I hope that the questions in 6.0 are not tougher than the one in 5.0(the passing criteria has been made tougher).....

[Bert Bates]

Hey Marcos,

As always, we're happy to receive feedback about our books! If you have specific instances of where we made mistakes I'd really appreciate it if you could list them here, or send me an email.

I'm sorry that the new book felt "rushed" to you. It's true that we didn't add many pages for the new topics - they just aren't that complex - but we made a lot of subtle changes to the book. We collected a LOT of feedback from JavaRanchers concerning the previous edition of the book. If you compare the two books very closely you'll find TONS (maybe 200!), of minor enhancements to the new edition. In many cases these were fixes to errors, and in many cases we might have rewritten just a sentence or two or added a paragraph to clarify a point.

hth,

Bert

[Vyas Sanzgiri]

Thanks Bert, I hope you also remove the extra sentences or the repeated ones and be more direct in the approach rather than joke

[Bert Bates]

Hi Vyas,

I'm afraid you're stuck with the jokes

Seriously, we have strong opinions about how to make learning easier and repetition and emotional stuff (like humor, however lame), are things that we really believe in from an educational perspective. At the same time, we're also open to new ideas, so if you can point to some research we should read then point away!

hth,

Bert

[doug rosenberg]

Keep up the good work Bert! I like the jokes

[Ankit Garg]

ya the jokes make the learning more fun...In-fact I think the format of the book is terrific. The exam watches and all that stuff is great.....

[Marcus Moreno]

Bert,

often you wrote something like "starting with Java 6, there's the new feature
[generics|Boxing|Varargs|...] - all stuff that was inserted in Java 5.

Or "starting with this exam, the exam will also include multiple choice questions..."

This happened throughout the entire book, imho -
well, you might say - "this is all not very important stuff, and doesn't really make the book wrong - but on the other hand -
every mistake, no matter how small, if found by the "student" rather then the "teacher", does make the "student" feel a bit "left alone" - you start to think like "hmmm, so if there's that error, there will probably be others, so I can't be sure if I can "trust" this book - and this keeps you from letting all the info "FLOW" right into your brain, without filtering it! ;-)
... Hard to explain, but maybe you also once had this feeling?

Were I had it most often, was with the Enthuware Tests - they are cheap, and help you a lot studying for the SCJP, however, they contain SOOO many errors, that you won't even believe these guys when they would tell you the earth isn't flat! ;-)
... I mean seriously, I noticed that I started to re-check more and more of their answers, just because I was never sure at the end, if it was me failing or them...

Okay, back to the point - there are also (at least) two mock exam question I wasn't sure if the answer was right:
Chapter 9, Threads, question 15: The answer says
f), because this would synchronize the chat method.
BUT: I don't think so - its not a static method, but an instance method, yet it's working on a static variable - which is imho not thread save, yet inherently EVIL (cmp. your own explanations! ;-)
Chapter 9, Threads, question 9:
You said: g) - An Exception is thrown
However, I said: a - it prints x and exits + g - an exception is thrown.
I mean - this is really misleading, at the least -
x IS printed - define what "exits" means. I guess you meant " exits without exception" - but that is not printed there...

p.s: It's "Marcus", not "Marcos", thank you! ;-)
I am not even spanish, i just know some spanish...

[naga ala]

Hi Bert,

The reason for me choosing this book over others in the market is because of following points:

1)This has a label which reads scjp1.6
2)It adds the aspect of humor---> I guess we need it.
3)It's as if some one is teaching you virtually.I have started to pamper myself with this book I would always prefer this approach to a dogmatic pedagogue.

Thanks for all of your effort.
[ August 19, 2008: Message edited by: naga ala ]

[Bert Bates]

Hey Marcus,

Sorry about the spelling!

Okay, here's my request - if you find an error, the first thing to do is to create a separate thread on this forum to discuss your concern - whenever possible you should add the code (formatted using the "code" button). Over the years JavaRanchers have found errors in the book and when they do, we correct them. On the other hand it's almost a daily occurrence that a rancher "thinks" he's found an error, and upon discussion on the forum it turns out that the book is correct. Because of this we like to have a discussion here first - it helps everyone learn!

As far as question formatting is concerned, we follow the Sun standard as exactly as we can! What you'll find when you take the real exam is that some of the Sun standards may be less than ideal, but they exist so that Sun can administer the exam as fairly as possible on a world-wide basis. It sounds like at least one of your concerns about an answer being "misleading" falls under the category of "this is EXACTLY how a real Sun exam question would be worded".

Again, we're happy to look at all of your concerns on a case by case basis - just start a new thread for each, and we'll discuss them! (If you think there are multiple "Java 5 vs Java 6" issues you could list all of those in a single thread).

hth,

Bert