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How hard is the OCAJP8 certification exam?

 
Greenhorn
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I'm just curious: how hard was it?

To me, the topics seem somewhat easy, but I have read a lot of topics saying the test is hard.

(This post originated in this topic)
 
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Hi John Plato,

First of all, a warm welcome to CodeRanch!

John Plato wrote:To me, the topics seem somewhat easy, but I have read a lot of topics saying the test is hard.


You should definitely not underestimate the exam (even if you are an experienced Java developer). Although the exam objectives/topics seem to be fairly easy, the exam itself is really hard. If you just read a study guide once and think you'll be ready to pass the exam, you'll probably in for a very unpleasant surprise Take your time to prepare thoroughly for the exam. The exam itself is really hard and difficult (you'll find many experiences from ranchers failing the exam in this forum, e.g. this one). Even if you know how to write a Java application, you still might fail the exam. You need a very good and solid understanding of all basic Java and OO concepts to be able to pass the exam.
Learning a programming language is like driving a car: you don't learn how to drive a car by just reading a book, you have to get your hands dirty. During your preparation you should definitely write a boatload of small code snippets, preferably using your favourite text editor, javac (to compile your code) and java (to run your code). On the exam you need to assess code snippets, spot compiler errors, select the correct output,... (without an IDE). Each code snippet in the study guide should be the starting point to do plenty of experiments (change access modifier, change return type, add throws clause, mark an instance method static or final, and so on). And before you compile (and run) the program, you try to predict what will happen after you made the changes. Then you compile the program (and if it successfully compiles, run it as well) and see if your expectations/thoughts were correct.

Luckily there are excellent resources (study guides, mock exams,...) available to help you prepare for the exam. In the OcajpFaq (besides other very useful information) and this thread you'll find an overview of all available resources (study guides, mock exams,...) to thorougly prepare yourself for the OCA certification exam. And on the OcajpWallOfFame you'll find plenty of (links to) experiences from other ranchers (including resources they have used). So it can be useful to determine which resources are useful (and which are not).

Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel
 
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