Will Java OCA 8 Programmer I Study Guide (Sybex) be enough to pass OCAJP8?

[Sangeetha Revanna]

Hi friends.... Studying only by OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide:
Book by Jeanne Boyarsky and Scott Selikoff enough for getting good marks in Java SE-8 Programmer-1? Is this book covers all the topics from exam point of view?

[Scott Selikoff]

The answer is... it depends on you and your experiences.

While yes, we do cover every topic you will need to know for the exam, some people with less experience may need additional educational materials. For example, if you are completely new to developing in any software language, we recommend in the introduction to our book that you read an introductory programming book, so that understand the concepts before studying for the exam.

Besides the review questions, our book includes 3 online exams. While this is good enough for most people, some prefer to purchase additional mock exams from other providers. Again, this is a personal decision, in part based on how well you take tests.

Good luck in your studies!

[Mushfiq Mammadov]

Sangeetha Revanna wrote: Is this book covers all the topics from exam point of view?

The book covers 100% of exam objectives. I encountered only one thing (append() method with three parameters) in actual exam which doesn't exist in the book. I wrote my opinions about this book in my experience, you may look through it if you want.

[Sangeetha Revanna]

Thank you so much for your Suggestion and Thanks you both cleared my doubt.

[John Freeman]

As a side note, if you are new to learning Java, one thing I found helpful to remembering concepts, methods, API, etc. is to put them in the context of imaginary scenarios and then practice, rather than just trying to remember things without context.

[Roel De Nijs]

Sangeetha Revanna wrote:Studying only by OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide: Book by Jeanne Boyarsky and Scott Selikoff enough for getting good marks in Java SE-8 Programmer-1? Is this book covers all the topics from exam point of view?

This study guide will definitely cover all exam topics of the OCAJP8 certification exam! If it will be enough to pass the exam will probably depend on other aspects as well, e.g. your own experience, the effort you put into your study, and so on.

If you just read the book once and think you'll be ready to pass the exam, you'll probably in for a very unpleasant surprise Take your time to prepare thoroughly for the exam. The exam itself is really hard and difficult. Even if you know how to write a Java application, you still might fail the exam. You need a very good and solid understanding of all basic Java and OO concepts to be able to pass the exam.
Learning a programming language is like driving a car: you don't learn how to drive a car by just reading a book, you have to get your hands dirty. During your preparation you should definitely write a boatload of small code snippets, preferably using your favourite text editor, javac (to compile your code) and java (to run your code). On the exam you need to assess code snippets, spot compiler errors, select the correct output,... (without an IDE). Each code snippet in the study guide should be the starting point to do plenty of experiments (change access modifier, change return type, add throws clause, mark an instance method static or final, and so on). And before you compile (and run) the program, you try to predict what will happen after you made the changes. Then you compile the program (and if it successfully compiles, run it as well) and see if your expectations/thoughts were correct.

If you use the search function, you'll find plenty of topics with advice to prepare (and ace) the OCA exam. Here are a few:

Studying so hard just to fail(1z0-808)

Failing Java SE 8 Programmer I

Bad Experience with OCA 7 exams

Any tricks about how to manage the 120 min for so many question?

second failed OCAJP

If you really doubt about your Java knowledge and your readiness to take the exam, you might consider to take one or more mock exams. The Enthuware mock exams are probably the best mock exam software available at this moment and they offer excellent value for money. And it's better to spend +-10 USD and fail a mock exam than spending a multiple thereof and failing the actual exam.

Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel