Failed 1z0-830 aka OCP21

[Alexander Zotz]

Although I studied for several hours daily for weeks, I failed the exam with 48%. And this despite having already passed the OCP 11 and OCP 17 successfully. But come on, folks, the OCP 21 is ridiculously over the top and straight out of hell. Even though I've been working with Java daily for 5 years, I find the extremely long code questions and answers, where you even have to scroll down vertically, absolutely confusing, overloaded, and just over the top. It's simply cancer.

[Paul Anilprem]

Sorry to hear about your result, Alexander! You are not alone. Our content developers who took the exam also felt the same. In fact, they even recommended to avoid taking this exam:

We have observed that Oracle starts administering the exam with low quality questions because OCP 17 also had the same issues initially (ambiguous questions, mistakes, long code snippets, 8+ options). Oracle then updates the questions based on the candidates feedback and performance. So, if you can, just avoid taking this exam just yet. Wait for a few months to let it stabilize. If you are in a hurry to get certified, take OCP 17.

Some of the questions on this exam are horribly twisted. Don't know what the exam question designers were thinking while creating these questions. Not only are the questions badly written, many questions attempt to test a candidate on some very useless trivia or arcane features of the API that no one uses. If the exam continues with these questions, OCP Java certification will lose whatever credibility it has left.

[Alexander Zotz]

I didn't even have a way to take notes during the exam. The online whiteboard no longer exists, and after check-in, the admin didn't answer my question about whether I could use paper and pen.
After waiting for 10 minutes without an answer, I started the exam and then discovered that the virtual whiteboard had been removed. Thanks Oracle for relieving me of 275 euros for nothing!

[Simon Roberts]

I have the same reservations that have been expressed elsewhere about the over-complexity of the questions, and the time constraints that prohibit a thorough reading of them. I really hope they improve this, as I see it as very damaging to the reputation of the exam. I suspect they think they're making it "harder and therefore more valuable", but I think they've just made it a speed-reading (and luck) test as much as anything. Don't get me wrong, you certainly have to know Java inside and out to pass, but you can fail (easily) for irrelevant reasons. I stop short of saying they're "trick" questions, but they're far too "tricky" to really be valid, particularly since so many amount to "if I typed this in an IDE, would it point out a silly syntax error, or would it work?"

That said, I didn't ask about paper and pencil, it was simply on my desk. The topic never came up, and the invigilator didn't ask to see my space, nor indeed anything other than my ID, and my camera appeared to be turned off for most of the exam. Very odd in my view, it didn't feel secure at all.

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear of your experience. Should you decide to retake take a stack of blank paper and a pen or two with you. And, why is is more expensive in Europe than here in the U.S.?

Good luck,
Simon

[Alexander Zotz]

I passed the exam today with 70%. In my opinion, it’s still too difficult. The questions and answers are too long. There are too many mixed topics within a single question and answer, and too many trick questions.Well, at least now I have
OCP11
OCP17
OCP21

[Simon Roberts]

Alexander Zotz wrote:I passed the exam today with 70%. [...]

Congratulations! (and if memory serves, the pass mark is 68%, right?)
Yes, much harder than previously, I'm sure. When i worked with Sun on these exams, they ran a beta test to "normalize" the pass mark, so that it would remain at the same level of difficulty (and to remove invalid questions). I don't know for sure that they didn't run a beta, but I strongly suspect they did not, and we're all acting as they guinea pigs for non trivial investments of time and money.

[Simon Roberts]

Alexander Zotz wrote:I passed the exam today with 70%. [...]

Question if I may... Did you notice what proportion of the questions you saw on your resit were familiar vs unfamiliar? "Back in the day" Sun used to have multiple entirely distinct exam papers, carefully balanced to ensure that each had the same level of difficulty. So you wouldn't see the same questions until / unless you were on your fourth retake or more. I'm not sure that Oracle is bothering with this, and your observations would be welcome...

[Alexander Zotz]

During my retake of the exam, I noticed that 5 out of the total 50 questions were familiar from my previous attempt. This observation suggests that Oracle might not be using completely different exam papers, as you described Sun doing in the past. However, my experience is just a single data point.

[Simon Roberts]

Alexander Zotz wrote:[...] 5 out of the total 50 questions were familiar from my previous attempt.[...]

Well, that's a lot better than only five of 50 being *un*familiar and the other 45 being repeats, which was about the ratio in the Java 17 exam (at least in the early days).

Good info, thank you!

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I had to take it twice as well. I got a few of the same questions and many different ones. THere's definitely an element of randomness.

Blogs:

Scott's attempt - passed

My first attempt - failed

My second attempt - passed

We used paper on all three of these and wrote about that in the blog. I can't imagine taking this exam without being able to write things down!

After we took it, Scott and I let Oracle know the exam was too long and they are looking at options.

[Gustavo Sá]

Is the retake exam paid?

[Paul Anilprem]

Yes, you have to pay again to take the exam again.
Sometimes Oracle comes up a "free retake" scheme and if you buy a voucher during such a scheme then you can take the exam again for free if you fail.