Hey guys, Just wanted to mention that when I took the mock exams on JCHQ I got an 86%, 85%, and 76%. When I took the actual exam last week I got an 83% (49/59) -- so it seems that, even though I think there's some occasional ambiguity/poor wording in the mock exams and none in the real one, these mock exams are pretty decent predictors of how you'll do. Did others find this to be the case? Also -- and I'm sure lots of people out there feel the same -- I am *dying* to know what I got wrong. I went over each question when I was finished, checking my answer and trying to keep track of how many I knew I wasn't sure of and that I might've guessed wrong. I came up with about 5 or 6. But I got 10 wrong, so my advice is simply the following (maybe the people who got 100% should be doling out the advice, but here it is anyway ): - read every question with extreme care and suspicion! - know threads thoroughly. Be able to create a state transition diagram of threads behavior. - be prepared to be asked about the signature of all but the most obscure methods from java.util and java.awt. - be aware of every valid and invalid automatic type conversion, for primitives and for objects. (i.e., can a byte be assigned to char? a short? vice versa?) - know what JVM functionality is system-dependent and what's not. - and as many others have mentioned, know your java.io API, in particular the constructors. Hmm... I just realized after typing this that this forum is pretty much for those who have passed already. Oh well! Thanks to Java Ranch for being a great prep resource! Jared
Dave Vick
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Congrats on passing Jared!! Actually, most people post some of the same stuff you did about the test, and those of us getting ready to take it (Friday for me) find it very useful!! If you want to see how others have done on the mocks as compared ot the real test go here and you can even enter your info to the database too.
Dave
shailesh sonavadekar
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congratulations. all the very best for the futre. Your Friendly Bartender Shailesh.
Percy Densmore
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Congratulations Jared! Appreciate the feedback. Wish you well Percy
Jane Griscti
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Congratulations Jared ------------------ Jane Griscti Sun Certified Programmer for the Java� 2 Platform
Congratulations and many thans for the feedback. It is amazingly hard to eliminate ambiguity in questions. I sometimes get people asking about a question and I think "how could you possibly have thought I ment that", then when I think a little harder I realise that it is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the wording of my question. I feel inspired to look even more closely at the wording of my questions. Marcus
------------------ http://www.jchq.net Mock Exams, FAQ, Tutorial, Links, Book reviews ================================================= Almost as good as JavaRanch =================================================
I got the same score man, 49/59 for an 83%. I got a 75% on the JQPLUS test the night before, however 5 questions or so I recognized and might have helped me get them right (so maybe I woulda get less than 75%). Before I went to take the test this morning I played the Java roundup game a couple times got a 100% and a 92% I think. I spent 1-2 weeks studying I would say. The JQPLUS was great help. I took maybe 4 tests using that going from like 63%, 58%, 72%, to 75% on the final "random test". I also took Marcus Green's test right after I got a 63% on JQPLUS, and got a 71%. I cant imagine studying for 3 months though, my brain would FRY. Already my brain feels like its going to melt! Well glad, I passed, hopefully it helps my career somehow because it was a lot of work.
------------------ SCJP - Webmaster of <a href=http://www.battlereports.com>battlereports.com</a>
SCJP - Webmaster of battlereports.com
Thomas Paul
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Marcus Green: Congratulations and many thans for the feedback. It is amazingly hard to eliminate ambiguity in questions. I sometimes get people asking about a question and I think "how could you possibly have thought I ment that", then when I think a little harder I realise that it is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the wording of my question.
Which shows how much hard work went into the test itself since it doesn't seem to suffer from these ambiguities. I guess that's why they go through beta testing.
Originally posted by Thomas Paul: Which shows how much hard work went into the test itself since it doesn't seem to suffer from these ambiguities. I guess that's why they go through beta testing. [/B]
That's true. And while Marcus might not get 100% on eliminating all ambiguity, it is so much more impressive to me that he can come up with these sets of questions that are equal in difficulty, but not identical, to the real test questions. I think that takes a pretty high level of creativity and brain-racking!
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