Passed OCAJP with 80%

[Rk Sen]

Hello everyone !

I have been a silent reader of this great forum for quite sometime. This is a great community. Kudos to everyone

Here is the short story :-

Cleared OCAJP with 80% last week. Pass score was 63%. 4 weeks of preparation (Mala Gupta's book + Enthuware exams).

Here is the detailed one :-

- Wanted to get this done in 2 months time frame. Picked up Mala Gupta's book, completed it in 1.5 weeks (1.5 hrs on weekdays and around 4 hrs over the weekend. Had to take a break for around a month after this due to other commitments
- After the break re-started the preps again with a quick review of Mala Gupta's book (2 days)
- Purchased enthuware mock exams
- Took all the exams in a span of 2 weeks with 2-3 days gap in between exams. Scored around average in all the exams with progressive improvement exam after exam
- My strategy was to take the exam and review all the questions including correct answers. But could only do full review of the first two exam questions. the remaining ones, I only reviewed the wrong ones
- Took the final mock exam the day before the actual exam and reviewed the wrong answers. Also reviewed the Java API documentation for String, StringBuilder, ArrayList, etc
- During the two weeks of enthuware exams, I prepared my own notes topic wise.
- Exam day morning - reviewed my own notes

Actual Exam:-
- I would say it's not easy and not like enthuware mock exams either. I kind of felt that the questions were getting tougher and tougher (kind of adaptive testing. May be It's just my perception). There were few questions for which I was very sure none of the answers were correct. So I did not select any answer (knowing that all are wrong answers) - Thought these are the questions that are not scored or may be there was a trap in the question which I did not pick up.. not sure.. But anyways, could complete the exam 15 mins early and review the questions that I had marked.

It was a great experience and this forum has helped a lot. I would have liked to score more but given the constraints and 4 weeks of preparation time that I had, I'm quite happy with the results. OCAJP is up next !

My 2 cents for exam aspirants :- Try not to take breaks during the preparation. It puts you back to certain extent and you need time to catch up. Also, create a preparation calendar with visibility upto at least one month and do weekly review on your progress.

Regards,
RK

[Anayonkar Shivalkar]

Hi,

Congratulations! and Welcome to CodeRach!

Thanks for sharing the tips.

[Roel De Nijs]

First of all a warm welcome to the JavaRanch!

Secondly congratulations on passing the OCAJP7 exam and taking the 1st hurdle in becoming a certified java programmer

Rk Sen wrote:I have been a silent reader of this great forum for quite sometime. This is a great community. Kudos to everyone

Hopefully after passing this certification exam you are a bit more confident to become a contributor to this great community and answer a few questions yourself

Finally thanks for sharing your experiences and providing these tips for fellow students. Have a cow for such a valuable post!

[Jhonson Fernando]

Congratulations ! Great score.

[Paul Anilprem]

Congratulations!! Glad to know that our s/w was helpful in your preparation.

[Rk Sen]

Thanks everyone for your wishes. I hope I will be able to answer and help others in coming days !