Passed the OCA with an 87%

[Sebastian Drozd]

Hello all,

I am fairly new on this forum but just wanted to talk about my experience with taking the oracle certified associate 8 exam today.

I have no prior experience working as a software developer. My previous jobs were a meat market manager and a stock broker lol. I recently finished my first semester in college where I had a few basic programming courses and these involved python. I tried many times to learn and prepare for this exam but after getting a 10% on the VERY EASY test a couple months ago, I thought there would be no way for me to ever pass this.

I finished off my current semester December 12th 2019 and I missed the feeling of having to learn and having to do homework(weird right i know lol). So starting that day I told myself I will pass the OCA in one month. (My original plan was to take it by the end of last year). I bought the book by Jeeane Boyarksy and Scott Selikoff and got to work. My current job is mostly based from out of the office and I am only required to come in 3 days a week which gave me alot of time to study. I read the book front to back I would say atleast 10-15 times. I spent the last month 12 hours+ studying, this included christmas, new years eve, new years day. I celebrated the start of the decade by doing enthuware mock tests lol. My enthuware mocks were as follows.
test 1: 50%
test 2: 70%
test 3: 77%
Finaly day test: 74%

As you can see I skipped a fair amount of tests because I noticed that a lot of the material repeats itself. My biggest source of knowledge came from doing all the objective tests on earthenware and in the book.

In my humble opinion, I think the real exam is cakewalk as compared to the enthuware tests. I finished the whole exam id say in about 50 mins or so and for the rest of the time I went back and reread and re-analyzed every single question. This is mainly due to the fact, that when i first sat down, I was so nervous and and my brain was foggy. I didnt sleep good last night either.

Guys do not stress this exam. It is nowhere near as hard as the examples in the book or enthuware. Or maybe did I just get lucky with my questions?

Anyways best of luck to everyone, and please let me know if you have any questions about what was on the exam. I am glad to help out.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Sebastian Drozd wrote:. . . tests on earthenware and in the book. . . .

I presume you used the earthenware to make the coffee you need for any exam

Congratulations Please go to the “Wall of Fame” thre‍ad and add your name to it.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Congrats Sebastian!

[Paul Anilprem]

Congratulations, Sebastian! Thanks for sharing your experience.

[Mike Savvy]

Congratulations!
I am actually learning for both in February - OCAJ and college exams, your post is very motivated.
Thanks for sharing your experience!

[Mike Gosling]

Congratulation Sebastian! Hope others will be motivated as you were!

Maybe you, or anyone else, can help me.

I am 3rd year CS student, with strong background in Java, wrangling with Java code since elementary school. I recently found out for these certs. I am interested in passing this exam.

So my simple question is: Is there any prerequisite exams that need to be passed first in order to qualify for Java SE 8 Programmer I | 1Z0-808 exam? Like OCAJP? I was reading this FAQ, but couldn't find anything related to my question.

If I already making an effort of passing the exam wouldn't be better to pass more recent exam? Or it boils down to the sam thing...

Also if anyone could throw me a resource where I can read on which exam depends on other exam? I see that books from Jeanne Boyarsky are good study book for almost every cert level.

All best!

[Paul Anilprem]

Mike Gosling wrote:
Is there any prerequisite exams that need to be passed first in order to qualify for Java SE 8 Programmer I | 1Z0-808 exam? Like OCAJP? I was reading this FAQ, but couldn't find anything related to my question.

No, there is no prerequisite for taking the 1z0-808 exam.

If I already making an effort of passing the exam wouldn't be better to pass more recent exam? Or it boils down to the sam thing...

Passing OCA 8 gives you a certificate, while passing OCP 11 Part 1 does not. If you require a certificate to show, you can continue with OCA 8. Otherwise, go with OCP 11 Part 1. I recommend going for the current exam. You can always write that you passed OCP Part 1 on your resume even if you do not get a certificate for it.

Also if anyone could throw me a resource where I can read on which exam depends on other exam?

See this article.

[Mike Gosling]

Thanks so much Paul on excellent article. Explained a lot!

Paul Anilprem wrote: Passing OCA 8 gives you a certificate, while passing OCP 11 Part 1 does not. If you require a certificate to show, you can continue with OCA 8. Otherwise, go with OCP 11 Part 1. I recommend going for the current exam. You can always write that you passed OCP Part 1 on your resume even if you do not get a certificate for it.

So, if I understood correctly, Oracle is not issuing any certificate after passing OCP 11 Part 1? If that is the case, what is the point of that (I guess, to make you go for OCP 11 Part 2)? I mean, they must issue some kind of evidence that you pass that exam, right?

One more question, and I won't ask anymore here.

Can OCP 11 Part 1 be treated as an (easier) subset, regarding topics and difficultness level, of OCP 11 Part 2? Translated in plain language, if I prepare OCP 11 Part 2 from this book, will that give me knowledge for passing Part 1?

[Paul Anilprem]

Mike Gosling wrote:Thanks so much Paul on excellent article. Explained a lot!

Paul Anilprem wrote: Passing OCA 8 gives you a certificate, while passing OCP 11 Part 1 does not. If you require a certificate to show, you can continue with OCA 8. Otherwise, go with OCP 11 Part 1. I recommend going for the current exam. You can always write that you passed OCP Part 1 on your resume even if you do not get a certificate for it.

So, if I understood correctly, Oracle is not issuing any certificate after passing OCP 11 Part 1? If that is the case, what is the point of that (I guess, to make you go for OCP 11 Part 2)? I mean, they must issue some kind of evidence that you pass that exam, right?

Oracle believes that many candidates stop with OCA 8 and do not pursue OCP 8 because of the certificate even though a lot of important concepts (such as multithreading) are not covered in OCA 8. Apparently, they want a candidate to be fully baked before issuing them a certificate

One more question, and I won't ask anymore here.

Can OCP 11 Part 1 be treated as an (easier) subset, regarding topics and difficultness level, of OCP 11 Part 2? Translated in plain language, if I prepare OCP 11 Part 2 from this book, will that give me knowledge for passing Part 1?

Well, you could call Part 1 a subset of part 2 in the same way as 11th grade is a subset of 12th grade. You still need different books for both. The same authors have a book for Part 1, which is what I would recommend you to get if you want to prepare for Part 1.
If you don't want to spend much for a Part 1 book, you can try this ebook written by Hanumant Deshmukh available for $2.99 (Disclaimer: It is published by us, Enthuware).

[Sebastian Drozd]

Thank you everyone for the kind posts!!

On my way for the OCP now, Wish me luck!!!