Dear Ranchers,
I know everybody seams to be able to get it from the first trial. Not me. I had to get it on my fifth trial. But heyyyy, it is better than not getting it at all.
I succeeded with a score of 81%.
I would like to share my experience with the people who did fail and who gave up.
* try to focus more on what you learn, rather on what you gain. The certification stands for what you know.
* Lots of the information that you do learn from the certification is not relevant to the development working experience, but it does simulate your brain and it does teach you how to learn. It is very important to keep this in mind. The certification teaches you to be able to use your brain and I felt that I had a working experience from this certification.
* Whenever you get emotional, post a topic on java ranch and they WILL back you up.
Also, I would like to keep these points in mind when you are preparing for the exam.
* Don't pause the mock exam and don't evaluate your mock exam unless you finished all the questions and never look at the answers or the explanations of the questions unless you succeeded the exam. I know it is tough, but it is the only way out.
* Prepare to give up some of your free time. The time that you used to sit at home and do nothing, you can kiss this time good bye for some time (not so long I hope).
* Don't over-revise your real exam or you would mix things up and you would start getting confused. I haven't revised my exam at all. I just re-read the questions to make sure I haven't misread any of them and I ended the exam.
* Do NOT try to get a high score. Sometimes when you do try to get a very high score you mess up. Just settle for the score that you feel most comfortable in.
* I used HFSJ (excellent focus on exam material), Sun Certified Web Component Developer Study Companion (covers the exam material and gives you some additional nice background information), Whizlabs (good but lots and lots and lots of errors in there), Enthuware (excellent, focuses so much on what you would face on the exam, including the exam interface and so many wide range of questions).
I was targeting giving the people with average intelligence like me some hope.