Hi Leon Mueller,
First of all, a warm welcome to CodeRanch!
Leon Mueller wrote:Now I am unsure whether I should now take the OCAJP 7 exam or if I should invest some more time and prepare for the new OCAJP 8.
In the recent past, there were some reasons to opt for the OCAJP7 exam instead of the OCAJP8 exam. For example: limited choice of study guides, the OCPJP8 exam still being in beta, no OCPJP8 study guides available,... But at this moment, these reasons are no longer relevant anymore. So unless you have a very specific reason to opt for OCAJP7 (e.g. a requirement of your employer),
you should prepare and take the OCAJP8 exam. It is currently the latest and greatest!
Leon Mueller wrote:Does anybody of you know, how big the difference between the two exams actually is? As far as I can see here, there are only five topics that are new/extended in the new certification. Are these the only differences? What would be the best way to prepare?
You have already found the
mapping between the exam objectives for OCAJP7 and OCAJP8. And for the OCAJP exam it is indeed a very limited list (for the OCPJP exam the difference between both versions is much bigger). If you are an experienced Java developer, you'll probably need maybe 1 (or 2) weeks to study the new/extended exam topics.
You can use online tutorials, articles, resources to study about the new and extended exam topics. Or you can buy an OCAJP8 study guide, go through this book and focus on the new/extended topics. With the latter you are almost guaranteed to have a complete coverage of all exam topics. And to
test your knowledge and have an objective indication of your current level, some mock exam software might be useful as well.
In the
OcajpFaq (besides other very useful information) and
this thread you'll find an overview of all available resources (study guides, mock exams,...) to thorougly prepare yourself for the certification exam. And on the
OcajpWallOfFame you'll find plenty of (links to) experiences from other ranchers (including resources they have used). So it can be useful to determine which resources are useful (and which are not).
Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel