Hi all,
I have taken the exam 3 times now and passed during my last attempt. By sharing my experience, I hope I can help others.
First of all I used:
-OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide: Exam 1Z0-808 - Jeanne Boyarsky and Scott Selikoff.
-Enthuware
As part of my traineeship I had to pass OCAJP 8, the exam was pre-scheduled and I had 4 weeks(fulltime) to study.
I literally had 0 programming experience, I had seen some html, that's about it.
I hear you ask: Woots is it possible to pass the OCA exam in 4 weeks of studying?
It is, 2 out of the 4 trainees passed it after 4 weeks of studying.
They passed it with minimal %s and never scored a passing % on enthuware (somewhere mid 50s).
The 4 weeks were not fulltime, it was more 60+ hours of studying a week
I failed miserably the first time, today I am happy I failed that day.
The re-sit exam was also pre-scheduled and it was very short after the first failure. I failed again.
The biggest mistakes I made:
-reading the whole book in one go, then start to study
-using the IDE too soon
-starting Enthuware before I had a good understanding of the study material
-planning
If I had focust on understanding every aspect of chapter 1 before moving on to the next chapter, I would have definitely built a better basis.
When reading the whole book, I was overwhelmed by the amount of new information I had to work through.
The usual and highly recommended helped me a lot:
-lots of small code snippets
-lots of trying
Maybe what helped me most was explaining other guys that had to pass, the concepts I understood quite well.
Also visualizing certain concepts, drawing them on a white board, helped to "save" them in my memory.
If I can help anyone explaining concepts or just helping to structure the studying, you can send me a PM any time.
Woots.
I have taken the exam 3 times now and passed during my last attempt. By sharing my experience, I hope I can help others.
First of all I used:
-OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide: Exam 1Z0-808 - Jeanne Boyarsky and Scott Selikoff.
-Enthuware
As part of my traineeship I had to pass OCAJP 8, the exam was pre-scheduled and I had 4 weeks(fulltime) to study.
I literally had 0 programming experience, I had seen some html, that's about it.
I hear you ask: Woots is it possible to pass the OCA exam in 4 weeks of studying?
It is, 2 out of the 4 trainees passed it after 4 weeks of studying.
They passed it with minimal %s and never scored a passing % on enthuware (somewhere mid 50s).
The 4 weeks were not fulltime, it was more 60+ hours of studying a week
I failed miserably the first time, today I am happy I failed that day.
The re-sit exam was also pre-scheduled and it was very short after the first failure. I failed again.
The biggest mistakes I made:
-reading the whole book in one go, then start to study
-using the IDE too soon
-starting Enthuware before I had a good understanding of the study material
-planning
If I had focust on understanding every aspect of chapter 1 before moving on to the next chapter, I would have definitely built a better basis.
When reading the whole book, I was overwhelmed by the amount of new information I had to work through.
The usual and highly recommended helped me a lot:
-lots of small code snippets
-lots of trying
Maybe what helped me most was explaining other guys that had to pass, the concepts I understood quite well.
Also visualizing certain concepts, drawing them on a white board, helped to "save" them in my memory.
If I can help anyone explaining concepts or just helping to structure the studying, you can send me a PM any time.
Woots.