Hi Laura Jones,
First of all, a warm welcome to CodeRanch!
Laura Jones wrote:I have failed the OCA Java 7 exam twice now.
Sorry to hear you have failed the OCAJP7 certification exam twice.
Laura Jones wrote:I am struggling to see where I am missing out on the exam. I feel as though something maybe just has not clicked for me. I cannot afford the official oracle online course (£1700 I think it is) so am wondering if anyone has completed any of the free online courses and felt as though they have helped them? Or if there are any websites/other exam questions which could be beneficial?
You definitely not need to purchase the official Oracle online course. I even doubt if you are guaranteed to pass the certification exam when you follow this course. In fact, you only need a study guide to pass the certification exam. But you need to prepare yourself thoroughly. With the OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I & II Study Guide (also known as K&B7), Mala Gupta study guide and the Enthuware mock exams you are probably using the best resources currently available on the market for the OCAJP7 certification exam. So there is no need to purchase/check any other study guides. But you could always use another study guide as a complementary resource, certainly when your mock exam scores would be (very) low. In the
OcajpFaq (besides other very useful information) and
this thread you'll find an overview of all available resources (study guides, mock exams, video courses,...) to thorougly prepare yourself for the OCA 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).
Laura Jones wrote:I really need to pass the exam 3rd time. So any tips will be appreciated
You didn't provide much detailed information about your preparation. You only mentioned which resources you are using and that you went through all enthuware mocks, but no further details. Did you for example only read the study guide once (or twice), then take the practice questions and finally a mock exam? Or did you write also code snippets during your preparation? If you did write code snippets, did you use an IDE?
If you just read the book once and thought you'll be ready to pass the exam, you were 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 IBad Experience with OCA 7 examsAny tricks about how to manage the 120 min for so many question?second failed OCAJP
Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel
