Hi All,
I cleared SCJP1.5 certification yesterday with 87%

with 2 hours preparation every day (including week ends

) in 2 weeks. Thanks to Kathy Sierra book and to the
SCJP Mock exams links provided in the
java ranch site.
A special thanks to Devaka Cooray. His questions were very very tough to an extent that when i started answering questions in the real exam it did not seem to be a question at all

Looking at the question itself i was able to figure out which area the question is targeted. But still i got only 87
First of all i would like to inform future scjp
test takers that if you clear deva cooray exams (even 59-65%) then you are assured that you will get above 80% guaranteed. Here is my story regarding his mock exams.
1) Diagnostic Tests - Got only 51% - Fail.
2) Practise Exam 1 - Got only 55% - Fail.
3) Practise Exam 2 - Got only 57% - Fail.
4) Practise Exam 3 - Did not take for three reasons - 1. No time 2. Confidence was very low after attending 3 exams and failed. So thought of not writing this. 3. Many people have informed in this forum that practise exam 3 is at expert level.
5) Final Exam - Got 60% - Uff finally cleared one but note just 1% above pass percentage.
But hold on..There was a beautiful message coming after taking Devaka cooray final exam that i can take exam within 7 days. So i am convinced to take the exam
Ok.. i would like to give a tip here regarding how to attack devaka cooray exams (This strategy i framed for last exam of devaka cooray)
1) There are loose balls (easy/trickier questions like which one of the following are static methods and questions related to API where you need not spend more than 15 seconds) spread around. So dont spend too much time on lengthy programming questions. Mark it for review and skip and finish off the loose balls. I can tell you that you will find atleast 15-20 loose balls
2) When you see lengthy program look for all java fundamentals check before evaluating the logic. I will spend some 2-3 minutes in the logic and atlast find out that it will not compile.
3) Go by choices if possible. This means that when a lengthy program is given and asked to select multiple answers then pick up the answers and evaluate with the question given. But be careful while evaluating.
4) Lot of programming will make you to familiarize in solving Task questions. In particular areas related to Collections, Sorting of Collections, Comparable, Comparator interfaces, Serialization.
5) If you have followed the above steps for sure you will finish 72 question (except the ones you marked) before 30 min of exam completion. If you have not marked more than 15 questions, then for sure you can work out minimum of 5 questions correctly within this 30 minutes.
Though the above rules are common to most of the exams, i ignored these thinking i have 175 minutes just for answering 72 questions. But never do that.
If you follow above i am sure you can crack all his papers questions
Again...Good work done by Devaka.. I dedicate 60% of my success to you
You can also get materials from javabeat.com (not free but affordable i feel) for getting good practise questions in all the chapters. It helped me for getting 100% in collections area in real exam
Cheers,
Saravanan.