bennido kool kat

Originally posted by Andres Gonzalez:
Good job bennido, how did you do in the mock exams? Which of them do you think was the most similar to the real exam?
[ July 21, 2003: Message edited by: Andres Gonzalez ]

Hi Andres,
Besides the test questions in the old version of B&K's book, I mainly took Dan's & Marcus's mock exams.
For Dan's exams, I consistently got about 60% on the comprehensive mock exams (Can't remember what I got for Marcus ones). So Bert's statement about about getting 10-15% better on the real exam than Dan's score is spot on !!

Thanx for all the congrats !
If anyone has any questions on the exam, feel free to post a reply.
I just took the exam this morning so I guess I have the most recent info ...
peace, bennido

Hi all,
I just took the SCJP 1.4 exam this morning and passed with 75% ! Boy am I happy !
Before the moderator moves this topic, here's what to look out for ...
a. Threads (about 5 qns)
b. Garbage Collection (about 3-4 qns)
(Surprisingly, not much on Inner Classes).
And here's what I used to prepare ...
a. SCJP 1.2 version of Bert & Kathy's book
b. Marcus Green mock exam's
c. Dan's mock exam
d. Extensive reading of Javaranch forum
(Note that I did not exclusively read about the new 1.4 topics. I used the JR Forum, Dan's and Marcus's exams to fill the gap.)
Peace, bennido

By the way, is cloning tested in the exam ?

These type of questions keep popping up. Should the moderator keep 1 Sticky topic at the top ?

If I override both methods and I don't follow the contract, will the compiler or JVM give an error ?

I feel the same too. I went thru' Kathy's book, took some mock exams and thought I was pretty ready. Then I started taking Dan's exams and boy were they tough !
Is the real exam as tough as Dan's ??

Hi all,
I am a bit confused about the hashCode method. By default (ie. no overriding), hashCode() returns the memory address.
But since a & b were created using New, wouldn't the memory address be different ? This is easily validated by performing an a==b compare which returns false.
If the memory address is different, why does a.hashCode() and b.hashCode() return the same value ??
Here's the code I used to test ... (the output is just "hashcode equal) ...
------------------------------------------
class Testhashcode {
public static void main (String [] arg) {
String a = new String("ABC");
String b = new String("ABC");
if (a == b) System.out.println("== equal");
if (a.hashCode() == b.hashCode()) System.out.println("hashcode equal");
)
}
[ July 08, 2003: Message edited by: bennido kool kat ]

That's a question that I'm interested about too.
Maybe some people here can share some real life experiences on how getting the SCJP certification has improved their career. And if getting a high score really makes a difference with employers.
[ July 08, 2003: Message edited by: bennido kool kat ]

Hmmm ... looks like the question format in 1.4 is easier. Couple that with the lower passing rate of 50% and it appears that I should take 1.4 instead of 1.2.

But then again ...
Since SCJP 1.4 is a subset of SCJP 1.2, would I be able to take the SCJP 1.4 exam based on what I study from my SCJP 1.2 study materials ?

I actually ran the code about 10 times and it threw the IllegalState exception except once when it ran fine.
That is, the 1st thread completed before the next start() was executed.

Well, i bought quite a bit of stuff (books, CDs, etc) for the Java 1.2 exam a while back. But never had the time to study properly for the exam and now 1.4 has come out.
But since all my stuff is on 1.2, I'll just take 1.2 rather than spend more $$ upgrading my study material.

thanx 4 your reply ! ...
but can you clarify ... when you say "present exam", does that refer to SCJP 1.4 only, or both SCJP 1.2 & 1.4 ?

I have been taking some of the mock exams and most of the questions do not explicitly specify whether there are > 1 correct answer or the specific number of correct answers (for multiple select questions).
So, in the actual SCJP exam ....
a) will it tell you that > 1 answer is required ?
b) if yes to (a), will it tell you how many correct answers there are ?
c) is this the same for both SCJP 1.2 & 1.4 ?
Thanks !