ok this is embarrassing. 77.
Here's what I think; I spent too much time in the details and not nearly enough time on practice tests. Didn't really start taking practice tests until Sunday night at midnight (
test scheduled for Tuesday); and pretty much panicked then came on here and immediately went and downloaded enthuware based on some of the threads here. THANK YOU.
The story: programming in
Java professionally since it was beta. Yea; since the late 90s. To be honest I think the longer you've been doing this "for real" the harder a test like this becomes. That plus the fact that when you build enterprise Java apps all day every day there's a whole lot of down side to putting your rep on the line with an "Associate" certification test.
Several reasons this was tough; likely the main of which bad habits have happened! My
IDE handles the little things. I'm shocked at how much I actually learned (and had forgotten; and re-learned!) Was totally worth it even though it almost gave me a panic attack.
It's going to be really interesting to see if the OCP is actually easier for me then the OCA; I'll let you know. I strongly suspect it will be especially since I've had to re-visit and re-learn all the "little things" I took for granted previously.
Study materials:
Oracle Press - "OCA Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide"
Sybex - "OCA Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide"
Both great books; read them each twice. Took all the chapter tests.
Sybex practice tests ..... poorly formatted (code blocks) unfortunately which wastes a lot of time - just go to Enthuware.
So - do the books; take the chapter quizzes/tests; then get Enthuware when you're ready to get into testing mode. Preferably get into Enthuware at least 2 weeks before the test (not 1 1/2 days like me!!) so you can get thru all the Enthuware material. Pretty sure that if I had even 1 week in Enthuware I'd have had a much better score. The actual test was easier than Enthuware and that's a good thing; practice should be hard or you don't get better.
Just my opinion.
And thanks again for this website and pointing me in the right direction when I panicked Sunday night