Ria von der Wartburg

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Recent posts by Ria von der Wartburg

Thanks a lot guys!

@Sergej:
No, I didn't have a job during my preparation time. Else I couldn't have done it! At least not beside a full-time job. I usually studied for a few hours each day. I logged all my time, so I COULD tell you the exact amount of time I studied every day, but that would be a long post, haha. The first few weeks I didn't do that much, just a couple of hours a week. But then when I had made the decision that I would take the exam before getting serious with looking for a job, I got busier: sometimes I put in over 30 hours in a week, but mostly it was like 12 hours a week. My study record hours-per-day-wise was eight hours! But that was rare, as it really took a LOT of energy and most days I did like 2 or three hours. Sometimes only one hour, or half an hour. In the beginning, when I went rather slow, I noticed that I forgot stuff pretty quickly. I would study a concept and then move on in the book, studying the next topic, and after a few days I had totally forgotten the previous topics. That got a lot better when I did 3 or more hours a day.

Anyway, 203 hours in 13 weeks would be an average of 2,2 hours per day.
The study time is excluding breaks, by the way.

Something I forgot to mention in my first post:
I also got a question on ArrayDeque - which I was prepared for thanks to the Enthuware software.
And there was at least one StringBuilder question.
8 years ago
Hey Everybody!

Oh boy that was crazy! I took the OCP exam this morning and found it so tough that I thought I might actually fail it... I was a nervous wreck by the time I finished, thankfully I didn't have to wait too long for Oracle's email telling me my results are available. And then I saw the "91%" and my brain went *doesnotcompute*

Here's the summary of my experience:

Resources used:
OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I & II Study Guide by Kathy Sierra & Bert Bates
Enthuware Mock Exams OCP SE7


Time spent:
3 months (total of 203 hours dedicated study time)

My Preparation:
I started studying a week after I had passed the OCA Exam. (you can read my OCA-story here )

This really helped because all the basics were still fresh in my mind. It's easy for me to forget all the weird stuff and the 'special way of thinking' we need for these exams, so I'm really grateful for having had the chance to take both exams in succession - I really recommend doing that.

I took a similar approach as in my OCA preparation and started by working through the OCP chapters of the K&B book. I was a little overwhelmed at first because
* there's 9 chapters plus appendix (OCA was only 6 chapters)!
* most of the stuff was totally new to me (I have zero professional experience in Java & programming in general. I've published one Android app though.)
* there's SO MANY DETAILS to know!!
This time, I needed to go through every chapter at least twice because there was just so much to take in and digest. I tried and tested and played with almost every concept and code snipped by writing hundreds of small programs using only a plain text editor and the command line. No fancy IDEs and no syntax highlighting! I think this really helps train your eyes for the exam-code snippets. I enjoyed doing that and thought it really cool to be able to code EVERYTHING just with notepad and command line, even the JDBC/database stuff!

After every chapter I took the self test, and after I had worked through every chapter at least once (which took me 7 weeks) I started using the Enthuware software. You can see all my results below. Somebody here wrote that they found the actual exam questions similar to the K&B self tests, so I took them all again a couple of days prior to the exam. In the exam today there was more stuff I thought I recognized from Enthuware though. In fact, my immediate impression was, that the K&B book alone wouldn't have prepared me enough - I'll get back to this in a minute...

Like before, I was very thorough with the Enthuware software - reading through all the explanations for every single question of every test after I took it. After I was done with the Enthuware standard tests, I started using "Leitner mode". I think this is a great way of really testing your knowledge and understanding because you can have it not show you how many options you're supposed to choose. So guessing the answer gets harder

I also took a lot of my own notes when working with the K&B book, and then even started making my own flash cards, which helped me get the insane amount of details under control. The week before my exam I went through all the notes and flash cards again, read my OCA-notes again, and read through all the 2-minute drills of the OCP-section in the K&B book.

When taking the Enthuware mock exams, I noticed that unlike in my OCA-preparation, I seemed to have more than enough time. I finished every Enthuware test before time. I kept my approach from OCA and went through all the questions once, answering everything I could on the spot, only marking those that I didn't know or wasn't sure about. And then in the end I went back to the marked ones and answered them. After that I was usually so exhausted that I finished the test...
In the real exam today, I only had 4 minutes left when I decided that I was done. I had marked a LOT of questions for review. More than twenty I think, but I managed to review/answer them all. No time to go through ALL the questions again though.

*** My Mock Exam Scores: ***

K&B Self Tests - average:
First time (April/May): 77%
Second time (June): 84%

My K&B Mock Exam Scores (not the self tests, the software):
OCP Exam 1: May 10: 68%
OCP Exam 2: May 14: 70%

My Enthuware Mock Exam Scores:
Test 1 - May 17: 75%
Test 2 - May 30: 83%
Test 3 - June 2: 79%
Test 4 - June 5: 91%
Test 5 - June 13: 78%
Last Day Test - June 21: 88%

(Real OCP Exam - June 23: 91%)

In preparing for the OCA I actually went for a 100% score, and so did everything I possibly could to know and understand every detail. Which left me really exhausted towards the end - but it got me a 93% score (it was dummy mistakes that kept me from the full 100). This time, with the OCP, I didn't do that. I just wanted to be prepared well enough so I wouldn't have to fear failure. Still, in the end I was getting really tired of studying and now I'm glad it's over.
The difference between OCA and OCP, for me, was that the OCA exam asks you to *understand* a lot of concepts, to know the rules of the language. OCP is more about specific knowledge of classes and how to use them. This is why I found it harder to prepare for - so much new stuff to learn! But a lot of it is actually really useful! Like the Calendar/Date/Formatting stuff, regex/globs, understanding generics... Geez, there's so much! Some stuff I'll probably never use again, because I'll be doing Android from here on out - but it was still fun to learn - Love Java!!
Today I went into the exam nervous but confident that I would pass - after all, you "only" need 65%... And then I sat there with all those weird questions and suddenly was very glad I "only" needed 65...!

So back to the fact that I'm glad I didn't rely on the K&B book alone:
When I started doing the Enthuware tests, I read the word "RandomAccessFile" for the first time in my life. I had gone through the entire K&B book and not seen it once! And then on the exam I get like 2 (or even 3?) questions involving RandomAccessFile!! I ALSO got Stream questions (Input/OutputStream) even though the book says there won't be any Streams. There were. Those were the kind of questions were I really had to guess, even though I had studied some stream stuff and RandomAccessFile-stuff in the Enthuware software - but apparently not enough.
Oh, and I also encountered enums and serialization questions. Actually, it seemed like there were questions on EVERYTHING. And so much stuff where I just wasn't sure what the answer was. A couple of times it happened that I was sure I knew the answer...but there was no option for it! That's why I was so confused and discouraged afterwards. And then 91%, haha - I don't know what happened, maybe all those weird questions were the ones that didn't count (as in the OCA exam, the intro said that not every question would be included in the final score).

So, apparently my preparation was enough after all, and now I really recommend the K&B book in combination with the Enthuware software!

Aaaaaah, I'm so glad, relieved & proud I've finally done it!!
8 years ago
I'm getting a 'DirectoryNotEmptyException' when I run this code. So I'm concluding "Exception at runtime" would be the correct exam answer.
Congrats Ernesto!
Cool, I got 93% in OCA too - hopefully that means I'll also get 83% on OCP, haha

Thanks for posting your Enthuware scores! That'll give me a good orientation once I get to the mock exams (still working the K&B book)...
8 years ago
Those are some great tips - Thank you Sergey!
I'm preparing for the exam right now and I'm still in 'Phase 1' - studying the book (K&B). I'm almost through, but holy cow this is a lot of stuff - and now you're telling me there's even more stuff coming up in Phase 2 - Enthuware mock exams... *exhausted* But I'm glad we have all this wonderful preparation material at our hands, this is priceless.

Congratulations to your score! Hey if that Certificate doesn't get you a job, then I don't know what will!!
8 years ago
Thank you Kaxhif, that was helpful!
I'm studying for the OCPJP7 and was already wondering whether it will have OCA questions as well - you cleared that up, thanks a lot!
8 years ago
Right on! As a superhero you have every right to be vain.
9 years ago
Hey, you could go by that name in the OCA/OCP JP8-book. That would make it official
9 years ago
Hahaha, another cow - how cool!! I feel very honored - Thanks a lot Wonderful Roel!
9 years ago
Thanks Blake!
Ah, I can see from one of your earlier posts that you already tried the exam a couple of years ago... There's some other things I did during my preparation, besides the actual studying and programming, and I think it has helped my success:
Almost every day I did some form of short meditation/visualization exercise where I imagined and got into the state of having already accomplished my goal. You know, that good feeling you get when you've been successful and you know you're really good and now you have a certificate to show the world. I practiced that feeling and saw myself as someone who can do this.
I think mental attitude is key to success, and to move you into the right kind of action to achieve your goal.
9 years ago
@Sergej:
Thank You!

@Frits:
Wow! My first cow - LOVE IT!! Thanks lot! *happy*
9 years ago
Thanks Joe!!
Ah, testing new questions... yeah that would make sense... Then we should get a bonus if we've answered them correctly, haha
9 years ago
Hi everyone! --> insert waving smiley here <--

This morning I scored 93% in the OCAJP7.
I haven't even received my cool eCertificate yet...

Reading about the experiences of all the people who posted here has really helped me in my preparation, so I'll share mine as well:

Resources used:
OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I & II Study Guide by Kathy Sierra & Bert Bates
Enthuware Mock Exams OCA SE7
Java Language Specification


Time spent:
2 months,
ca 171h concentrated study time (excluding all the times I read on my phone, waiting for the bus & stuff)

My Preparation:
I registered for the exam two months ago, on January 16. I'm still pretty new to programming: started learning Java in August last year and been taking a Java/Software Engineering course at a local institute since the end of September. The first thing I did after making the decision that I wanted to take the exam, was check out these forums and get inspiration & advice from the people who posted here. That was extremely helpful in finding the right material for my preparation (thank you all!!). I decided to get the K&B book and the Enthuware mock exams.

I started by working through the K&B book. By "working through" I mean reading the first 6 chapters and constantly trying out all kinds of concepts and things I read with the notepad & command line. That's a really great tip I read here somewhere (and I think they mention it in the book to): to use a simple notepad (no fancy syntax highlighting!) and the command line to write numerous small java programs.

I did all the self tests & used the book's exam software as well. I did those tests per exam objective first, so I won't post my "Exam 1" and "Exam 2" scores here, as I already knew the questions from the objective-wise tests when I did them.

I was really keen on trying out the Enthuware mock exams, but faithfully waited until I was finished with all 6 chapters of the K&B book, which took me about 2 weeks. I invested several hours every day - thank God I didn't have to work a job during that time, otherwise I couldn't have done it.
After I was through the book I mainly worked with Enthuware: I took a test and then I went through all of the answers and ALL of the explanations, even of those that I had answered correctly. After the second Standard Test I got discouraged because my results weren't improving as quickly as I had hoped for (I'll show you my scores in a minute). It really felt like I could NEVER get all the crazy little eventualities and pitfalls right...

And then I found an approach that really helped me improve: During the Enthuware tests I noted down every question where I either WASN'T SURE or DIDN'T KNOW. And then afterwards I tried to get the CONCEPT behind those things that I wasn't sure about and studied it until I felt I understood it. That also led me to read a lot of sections in the JLS. And one time when I didn't find the answer in the JLS or elsewhere, I asked a question here on the forum - got helped immediately by the wonderful Roel!

So here are my Enthuware Test Scores:

Starter Test - Feb 1: 78%
Test 1 - Feb 3: 76%
Test 2 - Feb 7: 77%
Test 3 - Feb 12: 91%
Test 4 - Feb 15: 84%
Test 5 - Feb 25: 91%
Test 6 - March 3: 96%
Last Day Test - March 14: 99% (Woohooo!!)

(OCA Exam - March 17: 93%)

I really took the Enthuware advice and did NOT do any other practice tests until I was finished with the last Standard Test, so my scores are 'representative', meaning that all the questions were new to me when I was taking the tests. Most people---no, wait: ALL of the people who posted here scored higher in the real exam than in the Enthuware tests. As you can see, I didn't. Even though I must have been overprepared and had gotten enough sleep. I strongly suspect that's because I made some dummy mistakes - I tend to do that...

Another concern I had during preparation was the time. In the K&B book they give some tips for the exam and they talk about several pass throughs. But after the first Enthuware tests I realized that I could never do it that way. No way could I actually read through every question TWICE. I could go through the 70 questions ONE time, and then have just enough time to review the ones I had marked. That didn't change much until the end and I decided this was gonna be my manner of approach for the real exam. So that's how I did it today as well. I passed through once, carefully reading and thinking through each question and answering every one I could. I left like 6 questions unanswered the first time, and had marked like 15 for review - and had enough time to finish up of those after the initial pass through. Another hour of time would have probably allowed me to spot those dummy mistakes and correct them, haha.

After I had gone through the Enthuware Standard Tests, I started using "Leitner Mode" (a feature of the Enthuware software) which was pretty cool because it doesn't tell you how many options you're supposed to choose, so you have to KNOW the answers (or guess right). I also re-took every single standard test (scores were at the 90-100% range the second time) and did the other practice tests, but always pretended that I had never seen the question before, so I carefully thought through each one even if I remembered it.
I really really REALLY recommend Enthuware! In fact, there were a few questions on the exam today that were almost identical to questions I remembered from the Enthuware tests! And yes, the mock exams ARE more difficult that the real exam, in that they test you on more concepts and also more tricky concepts. That's how I know I must have made dummy mistakes today - D'OH!!

These last few weeks of preparation I re-read parts of the K&B book, re-took all of the self tests & exam software tests, and also read some Oracle Tutorial stuff online, like about Exceptions.
Oh, there's one thing: in the K&B book they say there's nothing about operator precedence on the exam. Well...*cough*...I'm not allowed to discuss the exam content, but I'm sure glad I learned a lot about that subject on the Enthuware exams *cough*.

Something I found really odd:
Before the exam started, it said that not all of the questions would be part of the exam score. That's weird. I wonder why they do that. Doesn't make any sense, because now luck becomes a factor.

Oh, and another thing: this foliated thingy and the wiper-thingy you get to take notes...? Really sucks. In the K&B book they say to complain to oracle about that and demand some real sheets of paper. I think I'll do that - if I'm not too lazy. THAT was probably the reason why I didn't score 100%. Yeah, that must have been it.

Okay, I'll put my name on the Wall of Fame now, if I can figure out how to edit that page... used up all my brain power in the exam today.

- Ria
9 years ago

Roel De Nijs wrote:
I actually was hoping to be one of your heroes because my name is listed in K&B7


Oh, now that you say it! I had skipped that part of the book, haha. Da's inderdaad nog veel beter!!

Roel De Nijs wrote:
Don't know if the compiler sees a temporary reference. If you decompile that code, you still see the same statement:


Ah, that's interesting!
Hm, ok, so how do I find peace of mind in this case... hm, I'll just accept that 'new SomeClass()' is a "class instance creation expression" which somehow results in a reference to the object created by it. Actually I found a clue in JLS 12.5 (Creation of New Class Instances) where it says
"Just before a reference to the newly created object is returned as the result, the indicated constructor is processed to initialize the new object...".
Reference! Now the compiler is excused and I can sleep peacefully.

Roel De Nijs wrote:
But more importantly conclusion from that JLS statement is that you can't use primitive variables with the instanceof operator. You'll get a compiler error if you try do otherwise.


Yes, and that's very logical because there are no instances of primitive types.
Thanks a lot for your reply, Roel - and especially for the warm welcome!
You're actually one of my heroes because you scored 95%, haha.
Three and a half weeks from now I can post my results too...


Okay, I went through all the Threads you pointed out. That was indeed helpful because I just learned something new about the instanceof operator, namely that I can do this:

(creating the Pizza instance right then and there)
And in the JLS paragraph you quoted in one of the threads it says
The RelationalExpression operand of the instanceof operator must be a reference type or the null type.
So that means "new Pizza()" counts as a reference type. I didn't know that. Maybe the compiler sees something like this:

That would make sense because the Pizza object itself is on the heap and we're inside a method, so of course the "new Pizza()"-expression must be some kind of reference. And the compiler only cares about the type of this reference.

Likewise, in the example above where we're doing an obvious invalid downcast:

the compiler only sees a Tree type reference that we're downcasting & passing to the method. Cooooooool... now it makes sense!