Very frustrated with studying, enthuware

[Tod Stroszer]

Feeling very frustrated. I have been studying little by little over many months and I am not close to being ready to take the exam. I have read K&B twice, and done all the practice problems. I have tried ExamLab and I scored so low thatI gave up and tried enthuware.

My scores in the enthuware Standard exams are not improving. I have taken 4 out of 12 Standard tests in enthuware and I average about a 40%.I review my incorrect answers in enthuware until I feel like I understand why I got it wrong. Then I retake the test - when I retake the enthuware test I score high - around 90%, but I feel like that is not a valid measure since I have already seen the answers. Is it even worth it to take the enthuware Standard exams a second time?

I feel like I understand the concepts but I get tripped up by 'trick' questions.

I am a developer in other languages and I've done Java projects before for work. It's depressing to read here others study for 2 weeks and pass with decent scores, and I am working very hard and not seeing any improvement. I feel like there is something wrong about the way I am studying. But I have also been reviewing the book for topics I miss a lot in enthuware, and I have been coding a *lot* of practice programs as well.

I have been studying for a long time and feel like I'm at the end of my rope. I really need some advice about how to study.

[Andreas Svenkson]

Wow, that sounds depressing indeed....

I'm personally not done with K&B yet, taking it slow but plan on doing the test before the summer. If I were in your shoes (and maybe I will be :S), then I think I would probably just try to take note of the areas that I fall short during the mock tests. After that, I would review those very areas from the book, and naturally keep taking every mock test I could basically get my hands on and just try to burn it all in best I could.

I do get what you mean by "trick questions", there are a few like that in the book too imo, and although it's almost a shameless way to make a test, I still personally feel like you can learn these "dirty trick questions" much the same way you learn how things actually work. You learn "how" they like to trick you, and I think that's equally essential as learning how things are "meant" to work.

// Andreas

[Jackie Li]

pat pat, it might not be easy to switch to different language.

You might try starting with some Introduction to Java, and running some coding. Hope that would help.

[Paul Anilprem]

Tod Stroszer wrote:Feeling very frustrated. I have been studying little by little over many months and I am not close to being ready to take the exam. I have read K&B twice, and done all the practice problems. I have tried ExamLab and I scored so low thatI gave up and tried enthuware.

My scores in the enthuware Standard exams are not improving. I have taken 4 out of 12 Standard tests in enthuware and I average about a 40%.I review my incorrect answers in enthuware until I feel like I understand why I got it wrong. Then I retake the test - when I retake the enthuware test I score high - around 90%, but I feel like that is not a valid measure since I have already seen the answers. Is it even worth it to take the enthuware Standard exams a second time?

I feel like I understand the concepts but I get tripped up by 'trick' questions.

I am a developer in other languages and I've done Java projects before for work. It's depressing to read here others study for 2 weeks and pass with decent scores, and I am working very hard and not seeing any improvement. I feel like there is something wrong about the way I am studying. But I have also been reviewing the book for topics I miss a lot in enthuware, and I have been coding a *lot* of practice programs as well.

I have been studying for a long time and feel like I'm at the end of my rope. I really need some advice about how to study.

\

IMHO,
1. Stop taking tests. 40% score mean, you are not ready for the tests yet. Your fundamentals are not strong yet and you are spinning wheels.
2. Pick another book. Reading the same book again and again does not excite the brain much and the ROI decreases. A different book will give you another perspective and make it more interesting.
3. Don't take tests until your finish another book.

I am sure you will feel confident soon. Don't give up

HTH,
Paul.

[Sandra Bachan]

Tod Stroszer wrote:Feeling very frustrated. I have been studying little by little over many months and I am not close to being ready to take the exam. I have read K&B twice, and done all the practice problems.

Take a break from Java for a week. When you return from your break, read Head First Java.

I remember, when I was studying K&B, it took me nearly a month to understand how references point to objects in a heap, how inheritance works. During my lunch hour, I would take a set of gel colored pencils and draw to understand better. People who saw me in the establishment thought I was crazy.

When I took a week-long break from Java and then picked up Head First Java, everything started to fall into place. I understood concepts like references pointing to objects in a heap, how inheriitance works. I just love HF illustrations and corney jokes

Please, persist with your journey, never give up!

[Tod Stroszer]

I've already read HFJ and done all the exercises. I've also read Thinking In Java, Java How to Program by Deitel and Deitel, and taken Java programming courses in college and gotten As.

I will take everyone's advice, though, and go back to reading books. I will read another book or reread K&B, code all the examples again, and take detailed notes. I am not giving up on this certification.

[Sandra Bachan]

Tod Stroszer wrote:I've already read HFJ and done all the exercises. I've also read Thinking In Java, Java How to Program by Deitel and Deitel, and taken Java programming courses in college and gotten As.

I will take everyone's advice, though, and go back to reading books. I will read another book or reread K&B, code all the examples again, and take detailed notes. I am not giving up on this certification.

Please try to take it easy. Sometimes, you got to go with the flow....

[Ikpefua Jacob-Obinyan]

Tod Stroszer wrote:Feeling very frustrated. I have been studying little by little over many months and I am not close to being ready to take the exam. I have read K&B twice, and done all the practice problems. I have tried ExamLab and I scored so low thatI gave up and tried enthuware.

My scores in the enthuware Standard exams are not improving. I have taken 4 out of 12 Standard tests in enthuware and I average about a 40%.I review my incorrect answers in enthuware until I feel like I understand why I got it wrong. Then I retake the test - when I retake the enthuware test I score high - around 90%, but I feel like that is not a valid measure since I have already seen the answers. Is it even worth it to take the enthuware Standard exams a second time?

I feel like I understand the concepts but I get tripped up by 'trick' questions.

I am a developer in other languages and I've done Java projects before for work. It's depressing to read here others study for 2 weeks and pass with decent scores, and I am working very hard and not seeing any improvement. I feel like there is something wrong about the way I am studying. But I have also been reviewing the book for topics I miss a lot in enthuware, and I have been coding a *lot* of practice programs as well.

I have been studying for a long time and feel like I'm at the end of my rope. I really need some advice about how to study.

Hello Tod...Hello Everybody, I want to start by saying that it is true that Java is NOT an easy programming language, and I observed that the 'NEVER-give-up' filosophy is the best way to handle Java...I have taken the exams twice and failed, the second attempt was pathetic because I missed passing by just one score.

I am still here!...I refused to give up. It is important to note that the ONLY thing I studied in java is the K & B book, WITHOUT prior knowledge in computer programming, no professor assistance, I suffered for many months, frustration in and out many times, but I SWORE that java cannot defeat me in the fight, determitation is the key!.

Here is my advise:

-Keep doing the mock tests, even if you've done them 10 times before, it keeps your knowledge in-form.

-If you have any doubts bring them here and we will all put our heads together and resolve the problem.

-Participate regularly in this forum, look out for the problems others post here on a daily basis(if you can)
Try to help resolve the problems, this indirectly makes your knowledge grow stronger.

-Be carefull not to study 'out-of-range' you MUST get used to the exam objectives e.g(Objective 3.1, Objective 3.2)
Knowing what you will and will NOT be asked, helps a GREAT deal.

-With my 'two-time' PERSONAL experience in writing the exams I discovered the following:
a- Mock exam tools like Exam Lab, Ethunware and K & B are MORE DIFFICULT than the real exams.
b- They are a PERFECT tool to stimulating your brain and reducing the probability of you falling into exam trip-traps.

-And talking about trip-traps, it is FUNDAMENTAL because you are being tested on the DO's And DON'T's in java,
arent they right?? my answer is YES, if you say you are a java programmer you should know the 'illegals' and 'legals' in the language.
(I FAILED some easy questions because I was 'Trapped' by some 'trip-traps). Today I'd have been certified!.

-Here's a link about trip-traps: https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/SCJP-FAQ#tripsTraps

-If there's a topic you do NOT understand try to spend time revising(AS MUCH AS YOU CAN),
Example; I read the Threads topic 6 times over before I got it correctly and in my last exams
I scored 80% in Threads, just when you think you've read and understood something perfectly, there
might be that-little-detail you did NOT get correctly and there's the BIG difference!.

I hope this helps.

[Jim Jonides]

Yeah, please hang in tight. I like that attitude of not giving up and certainly this forum has given me a lot of encouragement.

I have studied SCJP for almost a year, I also felt the frustration that K&B book (especially K&B's Practice Exams book) has very hard tests since it does not tell you how many correct options there are. Right now, I am using Enthuware, somehow my feeling is that Enthuware is easier than K&B book, since it does tell how many correction options you need to choose. My score so far with Enthuware is around 60-70%.

I am not in a hurry to write the test, it has been great learning experience for me. Once I am done with Enthuware tests, I plan to work on ExamLab and K&B practice exams before I go for the real exam.