My story:
A while ago I bought the Sierra & Bates SCJP5 study guide. I started preparing myself, but... there is always a BUT, isn't it!
The busy schedule at work (not to mention the busy schedule at home - two little kids) did interrupt my study. I resumed it just to pause again, re-start it after a couple of months, finally I read once the guide from beginning to end. I wanted to have a second read as by the time I finished the book I hardly remembered the beginning
So the second go-through happened more or less the same way until I wrapped it up this summer. For those who think studying 15 minutes per day is okay, sorry to disappoint you, it's not: running in this slow gear you forget faster than you learn. So I took advantage of the summer month of August where work is less busy (my kids also grew up meanwhile, ha-ha) and re-read it again, doing mock-up tests and writing down all tricks I bumped into (four or five pages). The exam questions were somehow easier than the tests but concentration is not that good as it at home. So it compensates. Overall I scored higher in the areas I thought I'm not that good and lower in the areas where I thought I'm expert. I am nevertheless very happy with the result. After so much time I can jot it down from my TODO's list
What can I advise from my experience: do a couple of tests in a timely manner. That makes you be able to concentrate successfully for three hours. I found Whizlabs tests good but not fantastic as they still have questions about division by zero, float NaN or DataInputStream even though they are not on the exam objectives. Probably the SUN tests are the best. Good luck to you all
Septimiu Pelau