Well, I was learning from a book "SCJP Exam for J2SE 5" by Paul Sanghera a year ago for about 2 months. I was just about to take an exam, but life situations drove my attention from it.
About 5 weeks ago i decided to take a second shot and finally attend the exam. I studied from the same book again, and validated my knowledge using "SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for
Java 6 Study Guide" from McGraw Hill by Katherine Sierra, Bert Bates. The second position is much better. Book by Paul Sanghara lacks in-depth discussion about generics.
The exam was a bit easier than the mock exams I took - I took only mock exams from the books I read.
That's pretty much it
Jarek