Usha Kasi

Hi Everybody,
I just posted a new site on the web call Java Links. It has links to various sites on Java and SCJP exam. Do visit it when u get the time, and hope it is useful for those who are preparing for the exam. Pass on your suggestions/comments to ushakasi@hotmail.com. The url of the site is
http://www.geocities.com/ushakasi/javalinks/
Keep me posted about any other site that can be included.
All the best !!
Thanks
Usha Kasi

Hi Adora,
Personally I feel u must go for the exam only when u reach a safe percentage (above 71 %) in the mock exams. Mock exams cover all the topics prob even more , but the real exam will be as per my experience comparitively easier also. I feel it is not advisable to remember the questions as such from the mock exams, but learning the points from the mistakes will be useful.
Good luck
Usha

Hi Adora,
The ques need no preparation as such, don't worry, Sun informs u that they may use the data related to u and may contact u via email etc for marketing reasons. In fact the first screen asks if you'll agree and says if you don't then the exam cannot proceed !!
the clock also starts ticking so I just browsed thru and aswered in affirmative for those 2 ques.
Regards
Usha

Hi Amit,
Thanks, the exams that I tried were from Maha's site. I don't know which site u are referring to by 'that site' , anyway the site I used for mock exams is: http://www.javaranch.com/maha/_Mock_Exams/_mock_exams.html
best of luck
Regards
Usha

Is he referring to browsing cost ??
regards
Usha Kasi

Thanks to Ajith, Netla and Softie also.
And best of luck Softie !!
Regards
Usha

Hi Sonkalp,
Just search the forum with those words - Mediatracker and Sockets. You'll get the information you want.
And Pooja, my notes is sort of a compilation of all the other notes and the points I jotted while trying out mock exams. I don't have a soft copy now. Shall be ready prob in a week. Preparing for my hubby also !! So shall definitely mail u then. hope it'll not be too late.
thanks to you both too
Regards
Usha

Thanks to you all for your wishes.
Yes Rupak, I sure used to feel that way, and its always better to get a hold of the topics before we attempt the exams. RHE book is definitely the best one for preparation before taking up the tests.
You can refer to many of the notes, the links are in Maha's site and one more good one that I found was Mike's notes. The url is : http://www.noisiavision.com/java/mikes_study_notes.txt
The other one is at the Jxam site : http://eddiemcnally.hypermart.net/examnotes.html
Have a look at these too and get going !
Regards
Usha

Hi everybody,
Yest I got my Java certification. Well , passed with 81%, prob not all that good score compared to many of u here. Eventhough I never actively participated in the discussions, I have always been a quiet follower of the forum and each time it did made me realise how much more I needed to learn. So I owe a thanks to you all folks.
As for the exam, I would say majority of the questions were easy. Probably it is those 25%-30% tough/hard or those that really make u wonder which one could be right, which makes this certification a challenge. Most of the mock exams are so tough I feel it sometimes lets u down on the areas that u need to concentrate for the actual exam. So if u ask for my experience, let me first tell u about the exam :
*There were initially 2 ques regarding Sun marketing etc. Of course I aswered positively as the time started clicking.
* There were lots on fundamentals - ie operators, identifiers, shifting, loops constructs etc.
These were sort of similar to the ones in the mock exams
*There were a 2-3 on encapsulation , where a descr of the design is given and u are asked how to specify the class declaration or its members. ie 'is a', 'has a' questions.
This I feel the Sun sample or RHE book gives good guidance. But beware, they make u think there!!!
* Overloading, overridiing constructors-There were lots of codes to be analysed
*4-5 questions on modifiers including type in, choosing from radio/checkbox(with theoritcal/sentence ), program code situations.
*3-4 on exception handling. (Mock exams make u master these, so don't worry !!)
*3-4 on java.lang - strings & wrappers - quite easy if u know equals and ==
*2/3 on collections - very basic
*2 on I/O again Okay
*4-6 on layouts and awt etc.
* 2 on GC - one theory
* 4 on threads - 3 were theory and it was really hard to choose esp for a person like me whose is weak on threads.
I got 5 type in ques and before the exam I was quite concerned about the way to go about answering those. I feel mostly they mention - to include this or not to put anything other than this etc. I did type a semicolon for a statement, because I was only asked not to leave any space and it was a method call.
I did get all those famous media tracker, append, and socket etc. Thanks to forum, I could handle those.
I feel the GC and Threads, and the overloading and overriding parts were the ones where I lost my score.
As for GC and Threads, get the concepts because it more theory/sentence choice and confusing if u are not confident about the concepts.
For GC- Jyothi Krishna site is useful, but prob not enough.
For threads - I don't know what resource to suggest after seeing the ques, any book that explains the thread behaviour and other concepts will be helpful. Try JLS and JVM too.In fact I am doing that to know what were actually right.
Regarding collections, I/O I suggest - just stick to the Sun objectives and ignore how much u get on these on the mock exams. Again make use of Jyothi site and other notes on the web, this will prob give u enough knowledge if u go as per the objectives. I wasted atleast 2 days before my exam panicking about this and I did get 100% in these topics, but see that means prob 5-6 ques and nothing so tough to spend 2 days.
The composition of ques that we get in the real exam is prob not always reflected in many mock exams , that is why we mix up our weak areas!!
I tried many of the mock exams on Maha's site and the links to the notes were very useful. The inner class points are quite clearly given in Java in a Nutshell. For Gridbag I just made use of the 4-5 pages of Java in 21 days book, just to understand and the mock exams were enough to get a feel of the nature of ques.
So that's my feedback on the exam, and hope to join u all here and in XML and HTML forums too. May start off with Swing and RMI ,but Developer is not on my mind right now.
So best of luck to all the aspirants and thanks to everybody !!
Regards
Usha

Hi Larry,
Yest when I called up Prometric I was told that their systems were down, and I was asked to call up later. When I tried today again it was engaged for a long time and finally when I got the no. ringing I had to wait for approx 30 mins bef I could get someone on the line.
I think this is because of some prob that they were experiencing yest. I have called them up before and always got prompt response. Their no. is 1 800 795 EXAM , prob u would have tried this. So do try again and best of luck.
Regards
Usha

Hi Satyen,
I realise that my first point was not wrong but incomplete, so thanks to u for ur followup. As per the JVM, static initialization occurs when one of these happen:
1) An instance of a class is created
2) A static method in a class is invoked
3) A static nonconstant field is used or assigned.
For reference see the topic Initialization in : http://java.sun.com/docs/books/vmspec/2nd-edition/html/Concepts.doc.html#19075
So,in the code that u have given, since the static method main is invoked, static initialization takes place and the line is printed, eventhough no instance of that class was created.
Hope I have been correct and complete now !!
Regards
Usha

Hi, I think it must be a typo, because except for that, the code will work fine . And I don't think other choices are right too.
Frank, was the ques having start without braces ? Can I know, from which exam or book this ques is from ??
Regards
Usha

Hi !!
1) I think this is the order for intialization for a class in general.
*First all the class variables(static var) and static initializers are executed in the textual order ie order in which they appear in the class. Here if the class extends ie has a superclass etc., then the same is done for the supermost class first, then for each subclasses in order.
But note that static means - not related to each instance, so when the first obj of a class is created all the static initialization for that class is over, and that shall be used by any no of instances created later. So this step is done for the first instance of a class only.
* As per the JVM specf next, the constructor invocation begins and the instance variables are initialized and the constructor code then executed , again the superclasses to subclasses in order . This will be for each instance of that class.
You can refer to this url under initialization for more info: http://www.javasoft.com/docs/books/vmspec/2nd-edition/html/Concepts.doc.html#19075
2) The variables in the interfaces are static and final. So naturally they cannot be associated with each class implementing that interface, but act like constants being the same for all classes implementing that interface.
But with methods, all of them are abstract and hence cannot be static. they are invoked with their obj instance only.
3) Interfaces can extend other interfaces only.
If any of the info is incorrect, hope someone will let me know.
Regards
Usha

Hi Vidhya,
U can access it from Maha's site at the foll url : http://www.javaranch.com/maha/_Mock_Exams
Goto the Errata sec for the 3 wrong ques or search this site for Mindq.
Regards
Usha Kasi

Hi Frank,
I think for ques 1 -(a), (c) and (d) are right. The comparison is made from the literal string pool itself and so (a) returns true.
For ques 2, if ur query is about the new operator on an interface, then here an instance of interface Runnable is not created. Actually as I understand from the JLS, "an anonymous subclass of Object that implements the interface" Runnable is created. So it is an anonymous subclass that is instantiated and it is of type Object and it implements Runnable interface.
To get more info on this goto : http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/expressions.doc.html#41147
and read subsections on Class Instance creation expression
Regards
Usha Kasi