Hello everyone!
As I mentioned before, I will share with you how I studied the OCA exam (1Z0-803). I just passed it with a score of 88% in my first attempt studying for 2 months approximately. I have to mention that I already had previous experience programming in
Java, so obviously it would be necessary more studying time for someone who does not have experience in programming or in this particular language.
First of all, I recommend 1000000000% the study guide from Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates. It is one of the best technical books I have ever read and it also covers the 100% of the necessary topics that you need to know for the exam. It will help you if you are also interested to get the OCP.
First part:
Read the book. It does not matter how long it will take to finish it, but be sure that you understand all the important topics from every chapter. You don’t need to learn by heart anything, just to understand. Obviously, you will get a lot of doubts, there will be a lot of things that will come to your mind, but don’t worry right now! Just focus in the main ideas.
Every time that you finish one chapter, practice with the mock questions. Don’t use any notes or something, just try to solve it thinking by yourself with the ideas that you got from reading that chapter. Don’t worry if you fail a lot, it is normal. The important thing here is that
you should understand the solutions, so go back to that part in the notes and don’t stop until you will understand it 100%.
But it should not be enough. The main problem I have seen from many people is that they don’t actually write code. So do it! Open your Java
IDE and write a lot of code! Write these questions that you failed and check by yourself how it is working. Try writting the incorrect answers and check by yourself about the different exceptions, compilations errors, etc. and understand why it is happening.
Also think about different situations. For example: “What would happen if a class implements 2 different interfaces that have the same method signature?” or “what would happen if I try to pass a char instead of an int as reference in a method?”. Seriously, write a lot of code.
Second part:
Right now you should be familiar with the Java language and the main topics of the exam. Of course there will be things in which you are still not strong enough or you just skipped. So this is the time to read the book for second time. I am totally sure that you will consolidate your knowledge about the different topics.
At the time that you are reading it, have your Java IDE open and continue coding. Every situation that comes to your mind, just write it and check by yourself. Take notes about these things if it is necessary.
When you finish with all the chapters in the book, it is time to practice again the mock questions, but this time all of them in one attempt. It is the first and last time that you will repeat exam questions, as you should avoid learn answers by heart.
Third part:
At this point, I don’t know how confident you feel with the different topics of the certificate. Maybe you would need to read the book again or maybe not. I would recommend to do it. It is really fast and it is never going to be negative, so if you feel with time, do it. It should not take so many hours.
Now it is time to buy the Enthuware software. For around 11 euros/12 dollars I think, you will have access to 7 mock exams that are quite similar to the one that you will find in your exam. Also, the program is quite similar to the one that you will use, so you will get familiar with the interface.
Complete all the mock exams and NEVER repeat them. If you fail any of them or have so low score, go back to the theory and continue studying before take the next one. Once that you finish all of them you should be more than prepared to take the official exam.
Opcionally, in the study guide from Mala Gupta you will find another 90 mock questions if you want to practice more. If you have access to some technical library, you could get this book and check it as well.
Fourth part:
Exam time!
You should pass without any problem your exam. I got in the mock exams these scores: 75%, 70%, 83%, 79%, 77%, 70% and 80%. Finally in the exam I got 88% as I mentioned before, so you should not have problems if you were having good scores in the mock exams.
Good luck!