Hi Ranchers,
I have passed the SCJP 5 with a percentage of 91%, Thanks to all ranchers for the wonderful support through this site.
I am a java developer with around three years of experience, my experience with SCJP is as follows:
My Preparation:
I first read the book �Head First Java� by K&B which is actually a beginners book, but it was very useful for me to bring clarity to what I already knew, and I learned a lot from it.
The way topics are explained in the �Head First Java� book is really interesting, It took me around one and a half month to finish the book leaving the Swing UI part.
Then I read the SCJP book by K&B , Hat�s off to K&B It�s a great book too, like the above one. I went through the whole book and underlined important sentences, It took me around two-three months to finish the book, I did all the mock exam�s at the end of each chapter, my scores where not so good , was around 50%
I did a second review through the book, mainly reading just the underlined part and making short notes in my note book. And the �two minute drill� part is best to read a day/ an hour before the exam.
I did the First Master Exam with the book before and after reading the book, before reading I scored around 55 which means fail. After reading the book I again took the exam and scored around 80-90 in both Master Exams.
After that I tried a lots and lots of free mock exams listed in this site itself ,and wrote lots of small programs on various exam topics.
At the Exam:
I believe passing SCJP with good score, does not depend only on how well you know java, but also on how well you act like a compiler for that three hours at the exam.
I was a bit lazy at the exam at the beginning ,so I failed to manage time in first half hour, then I tried to finish around 10 questions in each 20 minutes. The questions at the beginning were a little tough, which made me a little anxious. I kept marking those questions ,of which I was not sure about the answers. I only managed to get around twenty minutes after completing the exam ,to review the answers. So I was only able to review those questions which I had marked, which were around thirty.
Before the exam do what ever you can do to keep yourself cool and to make your mind sharp enough to pick any compiler errors. And at the exam if possible close yourself from the outside world, and be just a compiler who only knows java, nothing else.
All the best for the future SCJP�s
