Today just barely passed the OCA 1Z0-809 exam with a 72%.
I used the OCP
Java SE 8 Programmer II study guide written by Jeanne Boyarsky and Scott Selikoff. Very good book would highly recommend.
Again Enthuware was also a tremendous help in my preparation, without that software I surely would of failed this
test. I though the test was very difficult, and I used the entire 2 1/2 hours to complete. I had many question I marked for further review and had to make a 'best guess' for some of them as I was getting short on time.
In reality I probably should of postponed the test for another day, but I missed the 24 hour window to reschedule without losing the exam fee so I just rolled the dice.
I began my preparation in January reading the OPC study guide and going through some of the examples in the book. Finished the book by the first of March and thought I was ready to take my first Enthuware test.
My Enthuware scores were not very good. In fact my first two scores were so bad I took a month and a half off to reread the book and practice. After the lay off I noticed some improvement after test 3. What was really frustrating was when I would review the test I could point to 8 - 10 questions where I knew the answer but just made silly mistakes, granted there were some questions where I had no clue. I think that's where Enthuware shines, giving great explanations to not only the correct answer by what other answers are wrong.
I started out using Netbeans to practice coding, and after the first two tests switched to Notepad ++. I found it to be very slow going, agonizingly slow. I really did give Notepad and the command prompt a shot, but I eventually went back to Netbeans and Intellij.
Big thank you to the makers of Enthuware, your software is awesome, and thank you to Jeanne and Scott for a great book.
Enthuware Scores
Test 1 - 38%
Test 2 - 34%
Test 3 - 52%
Test 4 - 57%
Test 5 - 53%
Last Day Test - 59%