Hello everyone,
I just took the exam and passed with 76%.
My background;
-Working as
Java developer since 5 years (Java 8 then 11).
Study plan:
-Started 3 months ago.
-Got Scott Selikoff & Jeanne Boyarsky book "Oracle® Certified Professional Java SE 17 Developer". To my surprise, I did 2 out of 30 on assessment
test.
-In the first chapter, they advised to read Head First Java, so I read it. Fun book, stopped at chapter 14 when it's about Swing, figuring it won't be at the exam.
-Got back to the first book, reading at least a chapter a week (in the train, at lunch, at night, in the gym, in bed before sleeping...). I got DESTROYED in each chapter test, barely reaching 10 right answers.
-I made Anki
cards on my phone for each concept. It forced me to reformulate, in simpler/shorter terms what I learned. Small problem though, the Anki card use HTML formatting so I had to type "<" to write generics, not ideal...
-Finished the two books in 2 months.
-Subscribed to Enthuware (web). I really, really, recommend it (don't miss the "help button" that opens up a forum where you can discuss each questions). I practiced with "instant evaluation" and without "Show Number of Correct Options" at first, it was... hard. Averaging around 50%.
On Enthuware there is some stuff not on the book like :
-dropwhile/takewhile (check
https://blogs.oracle.com/javamagazine/post/java-quiz-streams-collections-dropwhile-takewhile )
-the fact that primitive wrappers are immutable and why
outputs false.
-How is evaluated a array when the reference is changed
...in short, lot of little details and quirks that are interesting but also a bit discouraging.
I did 16 tests (around 2 full tests a day in the end) plus little quiz of 5-10 questions here and there. The website is awesome, you can start the test, answer the question without internet connexion and it'll save your progress when internet connection is coming back. A must when practicing in a train with unreliable connexion.
Using the "number of correct options", I was averaging 60 (sometime over 70, sometime around 55) therefore was not really confident for the exam...but I knew that I kept making stupid mistakes out of tiredness. I figured the most important would be to have a clear, refreshed mind during the exam.
-In the last days, I used the flash
cards from the first book. Really good, should have used it before.
I just
spotted one mistake (I know the authors are here):
"Which functional interface takes zero parameters and has a get() method?" : "
Consumer" (card fc864585.JaSE17SG.2.128)
Registering for the exam:
That was hard. I bought the 228€ voucher, it was somehow 273€ after tax. Couldn't find how to schedule my exam attempt.
I asked oracle support for help thrice. In the end I found the correct form (
https://help-education.oracle.com/apex/f?p=109:1:5430455146909 ) and they sent me a 5 pages PDF (with lot a screenshots). I had to assign it to myself from another Oracle website clearly designed to assign batch of exams to employes. That sent me an email from where I could, finally, schedule the exam two weeks later. There was a lot of spots in two weeks but most of them were like a 3 or 4AM in my timezone... so, schedule early to find a good spot.
Check-in the exam attempt:
That was easy. Oracle send a link for a mock exam with non-Java questions guide you through the process of downloading the secure browser etc. That way you can easily test the whole process a few days before.
The day of the exam :
I took a day off work. Did some light revisions with flash cards the hours before. Went to the gym. Ate well. Slept a lot. Then, a bit before the exam, browsed quickly all my flashcards database, gulped some
coffee.
I confirm everything said here:
https://coderanch.com/t/776343/certification/Sharing-experience-passing-Java-exam
Very, very similar to Enthuware website. Questions seemed easier (less tricky) than Enthuware's one. Time flies. 76%.
Well, that's all from me. Courage and good luck to everyone taking the exam.
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