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SCJP concluded at last

 
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Hi all,
I finally took the test this morning and passed with 85%!!! Not exactly what I had in mind but I am not depressed nevertheless. It was really a very interesting experience.
The questions weren�t that hard at all, as a matter of fact they were super easy, I know� I know� that my score suggests otherwise, but what can I do, I am a hasty guy; when it comes to exams I don�t take the time to even read the question one more time. I am pretty much sure that my mistakes where very stupid.
There was a 15 min survey in the exam with 9 questions, which I think has a very imported role in determining what kind of questions you will get. I don�t know if I am allowed to reveal the survey questions, so I am going to play it safe and shut up. My advice to you, answer the survey question WISELY.
Here is what to look out for,
1) Threads: 6-7 questions
2) Garbage collection: 2-3 questions
3) Surprisingly, only one question on inner classes!!! (Very easy one)
Mock exams
1) Marcus Green exams. (Very close to the real one)
2) Dan exams: use them as a study guide. (Don�t evaluate yourself on them)
3) PGJC-engine. (Tougher than the real exam)
4) Valentine exam (Extremely, tremendously, enormously difficult)
Books
1) The mighty K&B book.
2) Complete Java 2 certification guide (Sybex)
Now for the important part�
My thanks go to the family of javaranch for their tremendous effort in creating and running this great site. Special thanks to Jim Yingst and Marlin Miller for there absolutely perfect answers. And finally thank to all the ranchers for being there.

Moving on to the Developer Certification�
 
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Hi Vicken, Many Congrats!!

Originally posted by Vicken Karaoghlanian:
Hi all,
There was a 15 min survey in the exam with 9 questions, which I think has a very imported role in determining what kind of questions you will get. I don�t know if I am allowed to reveal the survey questions, so I am going to play it safe and shut up. My advice to you, answer the survey question WISELY.

As far as my understanding, Sun uses this survey to evaluate the candidate experience in all of those. I mean if say 100 people answered 80% of questions on thereads and if they have selected in the survey that they don't have any coding experience in threads, then Sun will re-think about the questions as they were easy and then try to add new questions taking out the old questions. Well, atleast that's what I think the survery is for To add, I think it has nothing to do with the level of difficulty of questions.

Moving on to the Developer Certification�
Welcome to SCJD


[ March 04, 2004: Message edited by: Satish Avadhanam ]
 
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Originally posted by Vicken Karaoghlanian:
There was a 15 min survey in the exam with 9 questions, which I think has a very imported role in determining what kind of questions you will get. I don’t know if I am allowed to reveal the survey questions, so I am going to play it safe and shut up. My advice to you, answer the survey question WISELY.



First of all, well done!
Can you tell us more about this survey WITHOUT revealing the questions? What's the point?
[ March 04, 2004: Message edited by: Bojan Knezovic ]
 
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Originally posted by Vicken Karaoghlanian:
There was a 15 min survey in the exam with 9 questions, which I think has a very imported role in determining what kind of questions you will get. I don?t know if I am allowed to reveal the survey questions, so I am going to play it safe and shut up. My advice to you, answer the survey question WISELY.


Vicken-
The survey that you take in the beginning of the exam does NOTHING to effect the type of questions you will receive. From what I understand, Sun uses it to judge how "tough" the exam is.
For those of you who aren't with the familiar with the survey Vicken mentioned, it basically asks what you think your skill level is on the different areas of the exam.
Think of it this way, if of the 20% of the people who say they are "Expert in the area of Exception Handling" get only 1/2 the questions correct... and of the 30% of the people who say they are "Novice in the area of the Collections" get ALL of the questions right. Then the lovely folks at SunEd could probably figure out that the questions they're asking on Exception Handling are too tough, and the ones on Collections are too easy. So maybe on the next iteration of the exam, they'll adjust the question pool accordingly.
Of course I over-simplified the example, but I think you get the idea.
The point of the matter is the survey at the beginning of your exam does nothing to change the level of difficult of the questions you will encounter.


Here's a reply Kathy made in this thread (and she should know, she helped co-author the exam.)
Howdy,
The survey is there as part of a wicked plot to ensure you get the hardest possible test based on your current level...
JUST KIDDING
The survey is part of an ongoing process to keep making sure that people who *should* pass, do, and that people who *should not* pass, do not. It does not affect your question set in any way.
The survey is used in a statistical analysis, compared with the individual questions, and they are looking for things like, "this person did not know ANYTHING about threads, but got every thread question correct." Or, this person claims to be expert at threads, but missed every question."
Of course, we have no way of knowing whether or not people are telling the truth in the survey, but it still helps overall. It is MOST important during the beta, because sometimes a question might appear and we discover that the most knowledgeable people interpret it in a more subtle way, and thus get it wrong, while the more beginning person gets it right, and that's the kind of question that would the be thrown out of the exam during the beta process.
So, it really helps if you are as honest as possible in the survey, and your answers will have NO affect on your actual exam questions.
Some day, we may switch to the "adaptive" format, but that is down the road, and you'll know if and when it happens!
have fun,
Kathy


[ March 04, 2004: Message edited by: Jessica Sant ]
 
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well done Vicken,
but it looks like in the pre question about how much have you done, and how much do you know about topics, does have an impact of the amount of questions you get for that topic, cause i only got 1 GC question in my exam...
Davy
 
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Originally posted by Davy Kelly:
but it looks like in the pre question about how much have you done, and how much do you know about topics, does have an impact of the amount of questions you get for that topic, cause i only got 1 GC question in my exam...


Not everyone gets the same exam - it has been that way as long as I can remember, survey or not. You get a random mix of questions and, although you can anticipate having at least one question from every category, you can't anticipate how many you'll have from each category.
As is shown in Kathy's post (quoted by Jess), the survey is used to help the folks at SunEd improve the SCJP exam, not to dictate what questions you'll get on the exam.
 
Corey McGlone
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As we have done our best to explain the purpose of the survey, there is little left to this thread except to congratulate Vicken.
Congrats, Vicken! Nicely done!
I am now closing this thread and moving this to Sun Certification Results - please pick up the thread there.
Corey
 
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Well done Vicken !!!
 
Dan Andrei
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Vicken can you please give the link for the Valentine exam
Thanx
 
Vicken Karaoghlanian
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Jess-
You are probably right about the survey, and it most likely does nothing to change the level of difficulty of the questions� but that is not what happened to me a coincidence maybe� I don�t know.
Dan-
You can find Val exam here, I did this exam one day before the real one and I�ve got 70%, it was a major let down for me, if you are planning to do this, then save it to the last 1-2 weeks, because the question are really difficult. Good luck.
 
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Congratulations Vicken
Well done
 
Vicken Karaoghlanian
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Originally posted by Alexan Kahkejian:
Congratulations Vicken
Well done


Oh yeah...
 
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Do you remember me?
 
Vicken Karaoghlanian
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Originally posted by Pradeep Bhat:

Do you remember me?



At last... I was wondering when you were going to show up.
Here you go
You know what you have to do. Enjoy!!!
 
Corey McGlone
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Originally posted by Vicken Karaoghlanian:
Jess-
You are probably right about the survey, and it most likely does nothing to change the level of difficulty of the questions� but that is not what happened to me a coincidence maybe� I don�t know.


Vicken,
We have received word from our own Kathy Sierra (who not only created JavaRanch but also helped write the SCJP exam) that the survey has absolutely nothing to do with the questions you are asked. You can re-read Jess' previous post for that information, if you'd like.
As I said earlier, the questions are randomly selected from a pool - your exam is not adapted to your skills as you indicated in your survey.
 
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Congrats Vicken!!!
Lakshmi.
 
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Congratz duder!!! Even if its just 85% :roll:
 
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Regarding the survey at the start of the exam. I think to take away peoples fears it should be at the end of the exam. People will answer the questions much more thruthfully. I didn't like filling it in because of what I read on the exam, so I answered the same for every question.
 
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Congrats Vicken.
 
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Vicken -
Excellent job, we're glad the book helped!
Bert
 
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Congratulations!!!

I'm planning to take the test in june 1st or 2nd week, have completed the preparation but want to give more mock exams, where can i get Marcus' mock exams or some other which are usefull for the preparion...


please give me some links..

Thanx
Sheetal
 
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Congratz !!!
 
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