[ExamLab] The FREE OCPJP exam simulator is back - now with more features

[Devaka Cooray]

For those who don't know what ExamLab is, it was a free downloadable SCJP/OCPJP exam simulator. I launched it in 2008 and it reached over 100,000 downloads as at the beginning of this year. It attracted that much folks not only because it was free, but also because it had everything that commercial mock exams have. In compendium, it had a total of 360 questions with answers and helpful explanations.

This post is to officially announce that we finally took it to the cloud and ExamLab is now web-based. Here is what's more, in addition to all features there were in the old version.

More exams: The new web version has 6 exams - namely, 1 diagnostic exam, 4 practice exams, and 1 final exam. Each exam consists of 60 questions.

Better questions: Some questions are replaced with better questions, giving it a more focus towards the real exam.

Better simulation: The exam interface of the web based version simulates the real exam better.

No outdated questions: Drag-and-drop questions and questions about serialization are removed as they are no longer there in the current exam objectives. More questions are added replacing these questions

Review store: All your exam sessions are saved in your account, so you can review all your exam sessions anytime you want.

Recovery feature: If you lose your internets or power in the mid of doing an exam, the timer will be stopped, and you will be asked to recover your last session the next time you get back.

Enhanced explanations: More enhanced explanations are added in the review mode.

Just create an account on the examlab website, and you get all these for free. With this new release, the ExamLab project is stopping support for the old desktop version. If you still use the desktop version, we strongly suggest you to stop using it and start experiencing with the new features and new questions added in our web based simulator. Note that these exams are currently designed only for OCPJP 1.5 and OCPJP 1.6 versions. We will probably support OCPJP 1.7 somewhere in the future .

So far so good. As this is the fresh first version of our web release, there can probably be some bugs that we couldn't swat at the first place. If you found one, please inform me over here or email

Here we go - get your hands on the new ExamLab: http://www.examlab.org

Let me know how it is for you. I'd love to hear your comments.

Thanks,

Devaka

[Paul Anilprem]

That's great! It has indeed been very useful for SCJP aspirants. Great job

[Gaurav. Prasad]

Really Great stuff...and that's FREE, keep up the good work.

[Kirant Parker]

Hi Thanks for the site but I didn't get the confirmation email. It says it sent a confirmation mail.

[Devaka Cooray]

I can't find any record in the database for your name or the email address you used to register here on the ranch. Server logs do not show anything wrong about the mailer either, so it is more likely the confirmation mail was blocked at your email client or something. If you can PM or email me with the email address you used to register on ExamLab, I can look into what went wrong.

Thanks,
Devaka

[Karen Boxby]

I took Practice Test 1 and the test certainly seem tough. Although not a true 90 questions like the real exam, I appreciate the shorter length. I also appreciate that this is a free product, but thought you might be interested in some suggestions or comments:

If I found an error or questioned the explanation, I couldn't check a forum or discussion of that question, although I could send an email. I didn't find any outright errors in the answers, just questionable explanations. I also didn't send any emails, so I can't comment on the responses.

The explanations are okay or poor. I still prefer the quality of the explanations in the enthuware product. I do plan on make a donation, but it affects the amount of my donation.

If I wanted to go back and review just a particular question, I have to click through each question until I reached the one I was interested in. You can't "goto" a question.

I didn't see any Internationalization or JDBC questions in this first practice test. I thought this simulator was for the SE7 OCPJP exam, but perhaps this is for SE6? Or maybe I'll see those sorts of questions in the other tests.

This exam simulator has helped me identify my weak areas (or reinforced that I'm still weak in those areas!) and I did find it worth my while to take the test.

Thank you for offering this product.

[Devaka Cooray]

Hi Karen,

I truly appreciate your feedback. All your feedbacks will be used to improve the quality of the product as we go on. In fact, ExamLab is where it is now only because of your feedbacks and suggestions. Let me just comment on your inputs.

Karen Boxby wrote:Although not a true 90 questions like the real exam

ExamLab is currently available only for OCPJP 1.5 and 1.6. Maybe we should make it clear on the homepage, but I didn't want to do that as I'm planning to extend it to OCPJP 1.7 too.

Karen Boxby wrote:If I found an error or questioned the explanation, I couldn't check a forum or discussion of that question, although I could send an email. I didn't find any outright errors in the answers, just questionable explanations. I also didn't send any emails, so I can't comment on the responses.

A good point. I'll add a "report this question" feature. For now, you can send an email.

Karen Boxby wrote:The explanations are okay or poor.

I am not sure what key attribute of the explanations you are referring with 'poor' - are they not detailed enough? Unrelated to questions? Hard to understand? Contains false or ambiguous information? Makes you more confused? I wrote the explanations in 2008 and they have been changed a bit from time to time. Maybe I can make it better if I completely rewrite them all, but I couldn't manage enough time to do that. I will, however do so if we can outline what quality attribute of the explanations has to be improved. Please let me more about this over here, PM, or email.

Karen Boxby wrote:If I wanted to go back and review just a particular question, I have to click through each question until I reached the one I was interested in. You can't "goto" a question.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll add that with the next deployment.

[Karen Boxby]

What I can recall about the explanations is this:

- The explanation focused on an answer, but not the logic to get to that answer given the question. I think that was the biggest issue I had.
- Sometimes the explanation simply referred to the relevant Java documentation and offered no details.
- In some instances the explanation was jokey and that approach seemed out of place.

I imagine it is a tremendous amount of work to explain each answer and since this product is free, it feels bad to complain too much. However, if you eventually want to charge money for the product, the feedback may be helpful.

For people using your mock simulations, I think it only fair that they know the simulation is for 1.5 and 1.6. I also think it helps them to know what sort of gotchas to expect.

All that said, I still felt it worth my time to take some of the tests, although I am preparing for the OCPJP 1.7 test.

[Nick Widelec]

I have just tried it out, me too I am studying for the OCPJP 7 however there are many common topics and this simulator is a very valuable resource. Very good high quality questions.

[Devaka Cooray]

Hi Karen,

Thanks, and I like these ideas. In fact, reviewing and editing all explanations is something that requires a lot of efforts and time to get done, but I can assure that it will be done as I keep this improving. On the other hand, being a free product does NOT mean you can't complain about it. Feel free to complain anything bad you see and I will use your inputs to improve the quality of the product.

Honestly, as this project is yet a newborn bebe, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around how to pay the server expense of the startup; so for now I am focused more on improving it in a way that people will donate. With that, minor improvements are less likely to happen within a week or two, but if you feel there are some particular glitches that needs to be fixed ASAP, please inform me with the question number and the exam name.

[Joshua Peterson]

Why are serialization questions removed? Should I practice over serialization questions from some other resource?
BTW questions and explanations are superb! I donated some little bucks but I would donate more if you had PayPal here. http://www.examlab.org/donate
How hard is it to integrate PayPal in a website?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Joshua Peterson wrote:Why are serialization questions removed? Should I practice over serialization questions from some other resource?

Because they aren't on the exam. You don't need to study them at all for the exam.

[Devaka Cooray]

Thanks for the contribution and welcome to JavaRanch, Joshua!

Joshua Peterson wrote:How hard is it to integrate PayPal in a website?

Unfortunately, here in Sri Lanka, PayPal does not yet support receiving transactions. PayPal claims that they are working on enabling it but no one can predict when it will happen. I currently accept donations over the Indiegogo campaign running there. Similar to kickstarter, Indiegogo too is a well-reputed company that distributes big funds, so I can assure that it is not something in a black hat.

[Robin Kumar]

i was planning to give my real OCJP 6 exam the day after tomorrow and was totally dependent on the Examlab tests for final preps . Yesterday i gave the diagnostic test and scored 46 %. Now when today i completed the practice test 1 the result is not visible and it says that i have to donate 20$ or more and even if i give a satisfactory reason the account will be unlocked after 14 days.... thats too bad ... why did it happen now.... now how can i make myself ready??

[Robin Kumar]

Devaka Cooray wrote:Thanks for the contribution and welcome to JavaRanch, Joshua!

Joshua Peterson wrote:How hard is it to integrate PayPal in a website?

Unfortunately, here in Sri Lanka, PayPal does not yet support receiving transactions. PayPal claims that they are working on enabling it but no one can predict when it will happen. I currently accept donations over the Indiegogo campaign running there. Similar to kickstarter, Indiegogo too is a well-reputed company that distributes big funds, so I can assure that it is not something in a black hat.

Devaka atleast allow me to review my first attempt..... whats the use of giving the test if i am not able to see my mistake....

[Robin Kumar]

Robin Kumar wrote:

Devaka Cooray wrote:Thanks for the contribution and welcome to JavaRanch, Joshua!

Joshua Peterson wrote:How hard is it to integrate PayPal in a website?

Unfortunately, here in Sri Lanka, PayPal does not yet support receiving transactions. PayPal claims that they are working on enabling it but no one can predict when it will happen. I currently accept donations over the Indiegogo campaign running there. Similar to kickstarter, Indiegogo too is a well-reputed company that distributes big funds, so I can assure that it is not something in a black hat.

Devaka atleast allow me to review my first attempt..... whats the use of giving the test if i am not able to see my mistake....

Thanks a lot Devaka Cooray....

[Devaka Cooray]

Robin Kumar wrote:Thanks a lot Devaka Cooray....

For those who trying to figure out what was happened, this was a limitation in the ending of fundraiser. I resolved Robin's problem via email and he got full access to everything.

[Robin Kumar]

Thanks Devaka for such an amazing set of questions....got certified with 83% yesterday.... it helped a lot

[Rakesh Goswami]

Robin Kumar wrote:

Robin Kumar wrote:

Devaka Cooray wrote:Thanks for the contribution and welcome to JavaRanch, Joshua!

Joshua Peterson wrote:How hard is it to integrate PayPal in a website?

Unfortunately, here in Sri Lanka, PayPal does not yet support receiving transactions. PayPal claims that they are working on enabling it but no one can predict when it will happen. I currently accept donations over the Indiegogo campaign running there. Similar to kickstarter, Indiegogo too is a well-reputed company that distributes big funds, so I can assure that it is not something in a black hat.

Devaka atleast allow me to review my first attempt..... whats the use of giving the test if i am not able to see my mistake....

Thanks a lot Devaka Cooray....

Same is the case with me Devaka. I have exam day after tomorrow. Please let me review my first attempt of practice test 1.

[Devaka Cooray]

Rakesh Goswami wrote:Same is the case with me Devaka. I have exam day after tomorrow. Please let me review my first attempt of practice test 1.

So done on your account. For further technical issues/requests, please contact via email.