Hi Paul,
I like the
Java Ranch questions a lot. However, I always seem to have this problem of "consideration Scope", not only in answering the Java Ranch questions.
For example, (I'm just going to use the Java Ranch questions to illustrate my problem), there is one Java Ranch question (I didn't write down the question #) that states "TRUE or FALSE: When you override a method, the overriding method in the subclass
must not declare ANY new exceptions not declared by the overriden method". I chose "TRUE" because I thought that NORMALLY one does not declare RuntimeExceptions (at least it is
not required to declared RuntimeExceptions). When I saw the answer and its explanation, I told myself to think more globally, about any possibility. So when I came to question #136
which states "TRUE or FALSE: An inner class has free access to private member data of the outer class", I chose "FALSE" because for a static inner class, it can only access the static member data of the outer class. However, the answer is "TRUE". If the question had asked "...A non-static inner class...", then I would have chosen "TRUE".
So are problems of this nature really my problem, or they are problems of the questions themselves? Am I going to encounter this kind of ambiguous questions in the real exam? If so, what should be my best approach?
PS: I recently passed the
SCJP test with a score of 81%. My personal experience was that, I did not encounter any ambiguous questions in the real test. Maybe this is partly due to the tight time that I did not have a chance to "think globally" after a second thought, but instead answered all questions on my first thought. For those who is still preparing for the exam and who might have the same questions, and for my own curiosity, I would still like to hear about your opinion.
Thank you very much!
Anne