OCA J7P 96% OCP J7P 91% Couldn't have done it without K&B, and Enthuware - thanks guys

[Steven Squeers]

Sincere thanks must go to K&B and their team for their superb SCJP6 books, and to Paul and his team at Enthuware for their superb 803 and 804 practice exams, and all the support that Paul and co. give to annoying people like me who are convinced that the given answer is not correct but who nearly always are wrong!!!

I passed the OCP J7P today with 91% and I can tell you, it was not a pleasant experience, especially considering I've never done a day's Java development in my life. I've done 5 certification exams in 5 months, and OCP J7P was the worst by far. What is a shame is that 99% of what I learnt probably wasn't tested. If only we knew what was on the exam eh.
What was worse in fact was that I was sitting literally inches away from a guy to my right who was doing some exam that needed keyboard input (i.e., typing - and lots of it) and he was hammering away furiously at the keys rat ta tat tat ta tat tat t t t tat tat stop start stop start for about 2 hours in an otherwise silent room until at last the ******* finished his sodding exam and left the room. I could barely concentrate while he was battering the keys with his fingers. Not his fault but definitely the worst experience of all 5 of my exams.
Still, done now. I am absolutely, totally, shattered. I think I need a lie down with all the stress

Thanks again,
SS (Humble Student )

[Kumar Khiani]

Congratulations Steven!

I assume that is one of the highest score on the forum for ocpjp 7. Especially in the situation in which you attempted the exam, you deserve a high 5!

I have few questions, could you please answer them.

Kindly elaborate your study technique for the chapters not in SCPJP6 book.

What score where did you get in all the 6 enthuware mock tests?

How were the question compared to the enthuware questions with regards to difficulty level and did you get questions on topics that are not covered by enthuware especially on concurrency?

What questions did you get on concurrency?

Sorry for asking too many questions, since we do not have lot of feedback on ocpjp7.

Regards,
Kumar.

[Steven Squeers]

Kumar Khiani wrote:Congratulations Steven!

I assume that is one of the highest score on the forum for ocpjp 7. Especially in the situation in which you attempted the exam, you deserve a high 5!

I have few questions, could you please answer them.

Kindly elaborate your study technique for the chapters not in SCPJP6 book.

What score where did you get in all the 6 enthuware mock tests?

How were the question compared to the enthuware questions with regards to difficulty level and did you get questions on topics that are not covered by enthuware especially on concurrency?

What questions did you get on concurrency?

Sorry for asking too many questions, since we do not have lot of feedback on ocpjp7.

Regards,
Kumar.

Hi Kumar,
High-5 back, thanks

My study consisted of (of course) K+B SCJP6 Study Guide and SCJP6 Practice Exams, but prior to that Ivor Horton's Beginning Java, seeing as I was a Java newbie. Also I studied Gupta and Ligori for the OCA (and of course used K+B and Enthuware for the OCA also), and of course Ganesh and Sharma for the OCP.
I also did all the Oracle online tutorials for 804 as per http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/extra/certification/javase-7-programmer2.html. These marry well with Ganesh and Sharma's book. And of course the usual scouring of the interweb for further documentation, especially of course the API.
I did the Enthuware mock exams and the K+B Study Guide's practice exams, and then the K+B Practice Exams book's exams. I then finalized my first set of notes and did the Enthuware exams again followed by the K+B Practice Exams book's exams again, but this time round for K+B I noted down all questions that I got wrong so that I could retake just those questions. For enthuware of course you have a record of your incorrect answers. What you can do is create a custom exam consisting of just the questions from all 6 exams that you got wrong. It's a bit of a faff with copying and pasting of qid's but it's worth it I think.

I consistently got somewhere in the 80s % for the Enthuware exams. The first time didn't count because really, they were too difficult so I did them as "open book" exams, which takes forever because you have to explore so many questions by making little test programs, lots of notes etc.

I'm not sure I should give away what was in the exam and what wasn't, but I will say that, for me, a lot (most) of the stuff that I studied for, wasn't in the exam, and that includes the topics on concurrency. I suppose, they have only 90 questions. They could really quite easily ask 990 questions, there is that much to cover. At the end of it all I was really struggling condensing my 10s of 1000s of lines of notes into notes of notes, notes of notes of notes etc. In the end, I gave up through sheer exhaustion.

One thing I was surprised about, was the number of what some people perhaps call corner cases. Either stuff that is probably poor practice, or that represents a rather specific use case that I have difficulty understanding the merits of which as a device for weeding out non-proficient Java programmers. But hey-ho, it's their exam, they know far better than I, to be sure, to be sure.

In summary, I think, if you really grind away at Enthu plus K+B's two SCJP6 books, you should be good to go for the exam (at a wild guess, maybe it's 70%:30% 6:7 but that's a really wild guess). That being said, I was always aware that, I'm not just doing this to get a certification; I'm doing it to have the core knowledge and understanding so that if (when) somebody says, "you're hired, now go and do X", I won't be all at sea and let both them down and myself down by not being able to do what was expected of me. The irony is, I don't want to be a Java developer, just to (be able to) do a bit of JDBC if needed to around my core specialism of Oracle database.

Hope that helps,
SS

[Kumar Khiani]

Hi Steven,

Wow! What an exhaustive and inspiring reply! Thanks bro.

This reply will serve as a guide for all other aspiring candidates on how to crack OCPJP7 with GREAT score

Will follow the tip of making custom exams on enthuware, I am sure that will help me a lot. I have attempted first 2 exams of enthuware and scores are disappointingly low and you have correctly mentioned they should had been solved as an open book test - lol.

Thumbs-up to you for cracking an OCPJP7 exam being a core Oracle RDBMS guy . Which other certifications have you achieved? 5 certificates in 5 months is superb!!! Which is the next target?

Coincidentally we both have joined this forum in the same week and have obtained same percentage in OCAJP but I just wish to get OCPJP7 certified in the first attempt There is really a lot to cover from many different sources.

Once again thanks for your guidance. I am planning to give the exam in next month. I will keep you updated.

Thanks,
Kumar.

[Lucas Moraes]

wow, 91% on OCPJP exam? congrats on the high score! even more for not being your specialty! I just did the exam last friday(18th) and passed with 80%, and just like you said Enthuware for sure was key to my success.

[Steven Squeers]

Hi guys,
Thanks again (blushing!). Lucas, congratulations yourself It's a great feeling getting it out of the way, n'est ce pas?
Kumar, I did 1z0-047,1z0-144,1z0-147,1z0-803 and 1z0-804. So basically, SQL Expert, PL/SQL I and II, and Java I and II. No more exams for me now.
And Kumar, good luck!

Cheers
SS

[Kumar Khiani]

Hi Steven,

Just an out of track question - After OCPJP7 I would like to do some certification from database management. Which one would you suggest as the first one to go for. Like you, even I am a complete newbie - 0 experience in software industry.

Thanks,
KK.

[Steven Squeers]

Kumar Khiani wrote:Hi Steven,

Just an out of track question - After OCPJP7 I would like to do some certification from database management. Which one would you suggest as the first one to go for. Like you, even I am a complete newbie - 0 experience in software industry.

Thanks,
KK.

It depends what you want to do i.e. what role you see yourself doing or going for eg a bit of db on the side or very db-centric. I'm not sure whether you really have no experience in IT or not; if so, you have a big choice ahead in terms of what kind of "IT person" you want to be eg a data person, a GUI person, a webdev person, etc. etc.
For any database work your core requirement - absolute must-have is some degree of proficiency with SQL. How much proficiency depends on what your role is and what db you're working with. The different databases sit differently with respect to the types of company that use them and the work that you might be expected to do.
Oracle is very expensive and tends to be used by big companies. Less work is probably available but what work there is might be a bit better paid and easier to get into IF you have the skills and/or experience; but a friend of mine in a tech/mgt role says a lot of places are moving from Oracle to MS SQL Server because of a) the very high cost of Oracle and b) the difficulty of finding people with the right skills and experience and probably c) the fact that SQL Server is a lot better now than it used to be. Oracle is still the daddy but there must be a sh*t load of work out there on SQL Server. You can query the job sites to find out.
So really you need to focus on core SQL, which is largely vendor-neutral thanks to ANSI, but then you should pick a vendor db eg Oracle db, MySQL (also now owned by Oracle I think), MS SQL Server, IBM DB2 (well, ok, perhaps not). Then you need to look at their examinations/certification tracks.
To repeat, the kind of work you'll be expected to do will probably be very different depending on which database you choose to run with.
If you go further than the core SQL you end up doing the good clever stuff that each vendor provides to enable you to be much more useful when working with data. That's a whole different ballgame though and one that's really for people who see themselves as being "data people" rather than eg MySQL people who are really PHP developers or Java guys who just use JDBC to execute simple queries or maybe even just call functions (written by somebody else working on the database) using CallableStatements.

Hope that helps,
SS

[Kumar Khiani]

Hi SS,

Once again a BIG thanks for your prompt and elaborate reply.

I apologize, I skimped on few details in my question.

I am planning to be a web developer with a bit of knowledge of DBMS, I have decided to study SCWCD after OCPJP. (Still a long way to go.)

Along with that I wanted to have basic knowledge of DBMS - so according to your reply i assume that 1Z0-047 is the right exam to start with to get basic knowledge of how to work with DBMS.

At this point of time I dont know on which DBMS I will be working so I assume I should prefer to get basic vendor-neutral knowledge aka SQL and then build on it after I get a job.

As you rightly pointed out - i would like to be a Java guy who would like to use JDBC but with more thorough understanding of DBMS

Once again Thanks,
KK

[Steven Squeers]

Hi Kumar
No worries, you're welcome. Sounds like you've got a good plan
I think you would be better off doing 1z0-051 though - it's the SQL fundamentals exam. 1z0-047 is the next level up - SQL Expert. Of course you could do 051 and spend the time saved doing else something more useful to your webdev role.
You can have a look at the exam topics here:
051: http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=5001&p_org_id=1001&lang=US&get_params=p_exam_id:1Z0-051#tabs-2
047: http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=5001&p_org_id=1001&lang=US&get_params=p_exam_id:1Z0-047#tabs-2

A list of resources for 051: http://www.oraclecertificationprep.com/apex/f?p=OCPSG:EXAM_DETAILS:0::NO::P2_EXAM:1Z0-051
A list of resources for 047: http://www.oraclecertificationprep.com/apex/f?p=OCPSG:EXAM_DETAILS:0::NO::P2_EXAM:1Z0-047

Best of luck mate.
Cheers
SS

[Des Robin]

@Steven and @Lucas (and any other OCP7 members who have passed)

Congrats on passing the exam. Based on the work I've been doing, I'm sure it is a relief to finally finish.

Want to tap your brains a bit on something else...

While doing prep for the exam, the one problem I primarily experience is running out of time on the Enthuware tests. I reasonably happy with my scores, I just don't seem to be able to bring my times down. So my question is, how closely did you find the exam matched the Enthuware tests in terms of time to complete? Did you struggle to finish the mock exams? Did you have time to spare?

Thanks

[Kumar Khiani]

Steven Squeers wrote:Hi Kumar
No worries, you're welcome. Sounds like you've got a good plan
I think you would be better off doing 1z0-051 though - it's the SQL fundamentals exam. 1z0-047 is the next level up - SQL Expert. Of course you could do 051 and spend the time saved doing else something more useful to your webdev role.
You can have a look at the exam topics here:
051: http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=5001&p_org_id=1001&lang=US&get_params=p_exam_id:1Z0-051#tabs-2
047: http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=5001&p_org_id=1001&lang=US&get_params=p_exam_id:1Z0-047#tabs-2

A list of resources for 051: http://www.oraclecertificationprep.com/apex/f?p=OCPSG:EXAM_DETAILS:0::NO::P2_EXAM:1Z0-051
A list of resources for 047: http://www.oraclecertificationprep.com/apex/f?p=OCPSG:EXAM_DETAILS:0::NO::P2_EXAM:1Z0-047

Best of luck mate.
Cheers
SS

Thanks bro for the links!
051 is the one!

[Paul Anilprem]

Congratulations!!! Glad to know that our s/w was helpful in your preparation.

[Steven Squeers]

Hi Des,
Sorry, I don't remember timing myself for any of the Enthu tests. TBH, the 804 questions are less puzzle-y than the 803 ones - at least it seemed that way to me. You know, fewer questions testing your ability to work through nested loops with 4 variables, usages of postfix operators in compound assignments and all that guff that would (should) probably get you thumped by another developer if he saw that you were coding that way. In other words, fewer questions that take time. Most of the 804 questions are flat out recognition and knowledge tests; any single question may well test you on multiple things, but you don't need so much time to work it out. Either you recognise what they are testing *and* can answer appropriately, or you can't.

In the exam, you should find you have plenty of time left over, as long as you don't dwell on difficult questions and instead mark them to allow yourself to progress through the 90 questions as quickly as possible before returning to the marked ones. It's old advice I know but good advice nonetheless.

Paul - thanks.

Best of luck,
SS

[Des Robin]

Thanks for the feedback. ;-)

[Kumar Khiani]

Hi Steven,

How are you?

I would like to hi-jack your this thread to get some more info on Iz0-047. I have created this thread as well : https://coderanch.com/t/625859/po/certification/Oracle-Database-SQL-Certified-Expert#2863098

Could you kindly give me tips on how to clear this particular exam - SQL Expert
1) Imp - Mock test : Which mock test software to buy?
2) Book : Which is the best book to refer?
3) Forum : Any other good forum where i can find discussion for this particular exam.

Thanks in advance,
Kumar.

[Manish Vermaa]

Kumar Khiani wrote:Hi Steven,

Wow! What an exhaustive and inspiring reply! Thanks bro.

This reply will serve as a guide for all other aspiring candidates on how to crack OCPJP7 with GREAT score

Will follow the tip of making custom exams on enthuware, I am sure that will help me a lot. I have attempted first 2 exams of enthuware and scores are disappointingly low and you have correctly mentioned they should had been solved as an open book test - lol.

Thumbs-up to you for cracking an OCPJP7 exam being a core Oracle RDBMS guy . Which other certifications have you achieved? 5 certificates in 5 months is superb!!! Which is the next target?

Coincidentally we both have joined this forum in the same week and have obtained same percentage in OCAJP but I just wish to get OCPJP7 certified in the first attempt There is really a lot to cover from many different sources.

Once again thanks for your guidance. I am planning to give the exam in next month. I will keep you updated.

Thanks,
Kumar.

Hi Steve,

Many congratulations. Quick question: I did my OCAJP7 yesterday now going to take OCPJP7 in jan14. I followed Mala Gupta for OCAJP7, not K&B. For OCPJP7, If I had to follow only either K&B or Ganesh/Sharma. Which one you think better prepares you for the OCPJP7 exam please? I am only going to follow one of these two books?

[Indira debarki]

Hi steven
First of all congratulations. You got a very good score.
Recently I got OCAJP programmer 1 certificate. I am planning to get OCPJP programmer 2 certificate. For OCAJP I read JAVA How to Program and mala guptas's guide.
I dont know which book I should go through now for OCPJP.
can you advice me about book and websites for mock tests please.
And one more question, Hoe difference is the OCPJP programer2 and OCPJP upgrade test. which one is better.

Thank you.