• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Tim Cooke
  • paul wheaton
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
Sheriffs:
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Tim Holloway
  • Roland Mueller
Bartenders:

How does the OCP exam compare to the OCA exam?

 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 113
7
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Hi everyone,

I passed the OCAJP 8 exam this week. I'd like to take the OCPJP 8 exam next. I have some questions about it, though.

I am relatively new to Java. I only have a few months of experience so far. I had about six weeks to prepare for the OCAJP exam. For OCPJP, however, I can take a lot more time. I can take the exam within the next year or so. I am planning to simply start preparing soon, and then plan the exam once I feel I'm ready.

  • How long would you recommend to take for the preparation of the OCPJP exam, keeping in mind I work full time and don't want to be studying every single night (like I did for OCAJP)?


  • I looked at the exam topics, and I'm a bit overwhelmed. There seem to be a lot more topics on the OCPJP exam than on the OCAJP exam. Is this true? Are the topics also more detailed and complex? It would make sense to me if the OCAJP exam is more difficult, but how much more difficult would you say it is?


  • Do you think it is realistic for me to pass the OCPJP exam (with a score of 80%+) with, let's say, 4 months of preparation? Taking into account my limited experience, and the fact that I scored 81% for OCAJP with six weeks of all-nighters (and all-weekenders). I'd be preparing during irregular intervals I guess: let's say 1 in every 3 evenings or so, and lots of work during the weekend.


  • What book do you recommend? I found that OCP: Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 8 Programmer II Study Guide by Jeanne Boyarsky and Scott Selikoff, as well as Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 8 Programmer Exam 1Z0-809 By Ganesh, Hari, and Tushar seem to be popular choices.


  • Is there anything else I need to know that is different about (the preparation of) the OCPJP exam in comparison to the OCAJP exam? Of course I will buy Enthuware's package again. Any peculiarities that come to mind?


  • Thanks!

    Regards,
    Shane
     
    Enthuware Software Support
    Posts: 4897
    60
    • Likes 1
    • Mark post as helpful
    • send pies
      Number of slices to send:
      Optional 'thank-you' note:
    • Quote
    • Report post to moderator
    OCPJP is a lot tougher than OCAJP. There are more topics to cover and most of the topics are complex. Further, some of the topics are not used much in day to day development job (if you are already working as a Java programmer). That makes them difficult to relate to and therefore harder to practice and remember.

    But an year is certainly a good time frame to get ready for the exam. 4 months would be tough. You can start with any book (depends on whose writing style you like). Amazon reviews are a good indicator of quality so you can go by those.

    Getting 81% in 6 weeks of preparation is good. But not so much for OCPJP because it shows you are still a bit shaky on fundamentals. So whatever time you saved in your OCAJP preparation, plan on adding that to your OCPJP preparation
     
    author & internet detective
    Posts: 42103
    933
    Eclipse IDE VI Editor Java
    • Likes 1
    • Mark post as helpful
    • send pies
      Number of slices to send:
      Optional 'thank-you' note:
    • Quote
    • Report post to moderator
    As Paul said, the OCP is a lot harder. 4 months is going to be tight. Not impossible, but you are going to have to be really focused. Make the best use of time you can. For example, maybe you can study during lunch.

    As far as books go, if you liked my OCA book, you'll like my OCP book.
     
    Greenhorn
    Posts: 21
    1
    IntelliJ IDE Spring Java
    • Mark post as helpful
    • send pies
      Number of slices to send:
      Optional 'thank-you' note:
    • Quote
    • Report post to moderator
    Sorry for raising that topic  from dead, but I have got a similar question and I did not want to create a new topic. Is the knowledge gap between OCA and OCP is really so big?

    I just passed OCA with 82%, and I am thinking about my next step. As far as I read OCP Is much, much harder than OCA. Question is, I planned starting Udemy Spring course (Which takes 34h+) and then create some home-project. Fulfilling this plan will take me a few months. After that I wanted to start learning for OCP - hopefully at the end of this year.

    But after reading your posts, I wonder if it would be better to go for OCP straight ahead, so I remember more from OCA. But then I'll get less knowledge which will be usable in my work (I'm junior java developer)
     
    Greenhorn
    Posts: 20
    IntelliJ IDE Fedora Java
    • Mark post as helpful
    • send pies
      Number of slices to send:
      Optional 'thank-you' note:
    • Quote
    • Report post to moderator
    Hi Maciej,

    I did OCP 8 today and must say that yes, gap between OCA and OCP is really big. From my point of view there is not so big problem with hard questions - where you can use logic or intuition but the problem is in questions about behavior of specific methods or classes where you normally never used them but you must know how they work. So you should know well really wide spectrum from Java APIs (Stream API, IO, NIO2, JDBC, Concurrency, L10n, ... - lot of classes with lot of methods).

    I started to use Java 8 in work this year on one project, unfortunately other projects are still on Java 7 and 6. And I must say that I feel that 2 months of working with Java 8 saved me during today exam because I started to love Stream API and approximately one third of all questions was about Stream API ;-)

    From my experience, doing OCP in short term after OCA is also good because you have fresh experience of tricks they use and you will remember better how work some parts which will be in OCP also included (access modifiers, overloading and overriding, casting and so on).

    At the end my OCP passing score was 5% worse than OCA passing score ...

    Good luck!
    Lukas
     
    Bartender
    Posts: 1868
    81
    Android IntelliJ IDE MySQL Database Chrome Java
    • Mark post as helpful
    • send pies
      Number of slices to send:
      Optional 'thank-you' note:
    • Quote
    • Report post to moderator
    This posting https://coderanch.com/t/684397/certification/OCP-toughness may help explain the toughness of the OCP exam and does kind of compare it to the OCA exam.
     
    Getting married means "We're in love, so let's tell the police!" - and invite this tiny ad to the wedding:
    Smokeless wood heat with a rocket mass heater
    https://woodheat.net
    reply
      Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
    • New Topic