Taking OCA 8 on Monday

[Amish Pat]

Hi,

I'm taking my Java 8 OCA exam on Monday and was wondering, other than the tips in the Sybex book. Does anyone have any other tips for this exam?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Aamish,
Welcome to CodeRanch! Are there any topics you feel uncomfortable with at this point?

[Amish Pat]

Hi Jeanne,

Thanks for your quick response.

The few areas I'm having trouble with is Exceptions, Lambdas, Interfaces, Abstract classes. They are just a few of the major areas.

[rajeswari kannan]

The following content is taken from OCAJP 8 Preparation article .

On real exam Center, take a deep breath and open your test session. Don’t rush into answering all questions in same sequence, try to prioritize and complete the exam.

   First round, answer questions which you know very well
   Second Round, try to answer with the help of paper work and mark any questions which need further attention
   Third round, verify answers for the marked questions and correct them
   Fourth round, review all question & answers
   Final Review, do not click finish before the time expires. You can still have time for changes in your answers during review, so do more review if you have time.

Good luck for your OCAJP exam.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Amish Pat wrote:The few areas I'm having trouble with is Exceptions, Lambdas, Interfaces, Abstract classes. They are just a few of the major areas.

Lambdas are a small part of the OCA so I recommend focusing on your other weaker areas. (On the OCP lambdas are a huge part of the exam so you'll have to conquer them eventually; it just doesn't need to be for Monday.)

I recommend answering the review questions in chapter 5 and 6 a few times. The second and third time, tell yourself why each one is correct. It's ok that you'll be essentially remembering the tricks. This will help you spot them on the real exam. For example, "that one throws an exception because the finally block throws an exception". It's kind of like a focused way of reviewing the rules.

[Eric Longhorn]

During the test, do all the questions, besides the ones that may take some time or some of the head scratcher questions. Make sure you mark them. If you prepared well, you should finish with some extra time left. Use the remaining time to go over the marked questions (questions that take time and the head scratcher ones).

[Scott Selikoff]

We added a study tips and test taking strategy in both our study guides that might help.  Overall, just get plenty of sleep!  And watch the clock.  If you think you are spending too much time on a question, skip it and come back later.

[Liutauras Vilda]

Scott Selikoff wrote:If you think you are spending too much time on a question, skip it and come back later.

For that strategically more better if you choose any answer from your 6th sense and mark for review later (if you have time left), because could be that you won't have time for any reason, hence skipping and not marking any answer and not having time later to mark even guess would be 100% incorrect.

In general I can advice you, just not worry too much - you may fail or may not. Even if you fail, nothing so bad, just go relaxed and don't think about having certificate as about panacea.

[Scott Selikoff]

Well, yes, you should never not answer a question.  The review checkbox is extremely useful though.  Just don't get bogged on one question and miss spending equal time on others.  Remember, 1 difficult question isn't worth more than 10 easy questions.  If you can eliminate at least one answer choice, it's better than blind luck!

[Amish Pat]

Thanks everyone for the input. But I failed! Got only 51%. Does anyone know if I can retake it?

[Ramakrishna Ark]

Ofcourse yes. You can retake. But as far as I know you have to wait 14 days before retaking the exam. Please go through oracle certification website for indepth details.

[Roel De Nijs]

Amish Pat wrote:Does anyone know if I can retake it?

Yes, you can!

Amish Pat wrote:But I failed! Got only 51%.

Sorry to hear you have failed the OCAJP8 exam.

Could you provide more detailed information about your preparation? Do you only read the book? Do you write small code snippets? Do you use an IDE? What's your background? Do you have any Java experience before preparing for this certification? And so on.

In the OcajpFaq (besides other very useful information) and this thread you'll find an overview of all available (free and commercial) resources (study guides, mock exams, video courses,...) 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).

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

Need some advice after failing the exam

Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel