Hello everyone !
I have been a silent reader of this great forum for quite sometime. This is a great community. Kudos to everyone
Here is the short story :-
Cleared OCAJP with 80% last week. Pass score was 63%. 4 weeks of preparation (Mala Gupta's book + Enthuware exams).
Here is the detailed one :-
- Wanted to get this done in 2 months time frame. Picked up Mala Gupta's book, completed it in 1.5 weeks (1.5 hrs on weekdays and around 4 hrs over the weekend. Had to take a break for around a month after this due to other commitments
- After the break re-started the preps again with a quick review of Mala Gupta's book (2 days)
- Purchased enthuware mock exams
- Took all the exams in a span of 2 weeks with 2-3 days gap in between exams. Scored around average in all the exams with progressive improvement exam after exam
- My strategy was to take the exam and review all the questions including correct answers. But could only do full review of the first two exam questions. the remaining ones, I only reviewed the wrong ones
- Took the final mock exam the day before the actual exam and reviewed the wrong answers. Also reviewed the Java API documentation for String, StringBuilder, ArrayList, etc
- During the two weeks of enthuware exams, I prepared my own notes topic wise.
- Exam day morning - reviewed my own notes
Actual Exam:-
- I would say it's not easy and not like enthuware mock exams either. I kind of felt that the questions were getting tougher and tougher (kind of adaptive testing. May be It's just my perception). There were few questions for which I was very sure none of the answers were correct. So I did not select any answer (knowing that all are wrong answers) - Thought these are the questions that are not scored or may be there was a trap in the question which I did not pick up.. not sure.. But anyways, could complete the exam 15 mins early and review the questions that I had marked.
It was a great experience and this forum has helped a lot. I would have liked to score more but given the constraints and 4 weeks of preparation time that I had, I'm quite happy with the results. OCAJP is up next !
My 2 cents for exam aspirants :- Try not to take breaks during the preparation. It puts you back to certain extent and you need time to catch up. Also, create a preparation calendar with visibility upto at least one month and do weekly review on your progress.
Regards,
RK
