I made it just 30 minutes ago with score of 91% (54/59) I was expecting (or maybe hoping) higher, my highest in mocks was 93 (Marcus Green), so was hoping to better that, but still it's fine, at least I am on the other side of 90, 89 would have been worse Human errors are always possible, so I think getting only 5 wrong is not too bad. Feedback on the exam - I also had some "wierd" experience with the local prometric center, but it is best to forget that, it is quite irritating to experience it.
Exam is not very easy, there are lot of code based questions, on flow control with nested loops which consume time, make sure you get them right first time only.
Exam does have few tricky questions, at least I got two, pay special attention to modifiers.
I got 3/4 type in questions, make sure you mark them when you solve them, recheck them later. A typographical error is always possible with an unknown system.
My exam *DID* have a wrong question, I had tried similar code in the morning. But since it said select 2, I selected 2 which were "ok" types, apparently they were right coz I got 100% in that section.
Use pen and paper that is available to yo, whenever you need it, even if it is not AWT. It helped me in GC, flow control, bitwise operators, everyewhere.
I got only 57% (so I think 4/7) in threads which is most annoying, because I never got a thread question wrong in mocks, I must have missed something tricky there, I think. What the heck, I know that I have done Threads very well.
Overall, a good eperience, I have been programming in Java for last 2 years now, but this EXAM has given me a better perspective of IO classes, few unknown AWT classes, and much more.
Well, more tips later.... Mock Scores I got 93, 90, and 90 in Marcus Green mocks (Yeah, once again the score is quite close to his exams), but the real exam is definitely tougher than MG mocks. I guess the fact that in his mocks you do not know how many correct answers to select makes up for that. I got ONLY 71 in Valentin's mock, which you might be knowing already. I got 88 in Mughal Mock. Now, my favourite part - talking abt JavaRanch. Definitely, the best place to hang in. Thanks to all you ranchers. Especially I would like to thank Valentin, Jose, Leena Rane, Rob, Ravish and Marcus Green. They have been great help. Two people I can't thank enough are Valentin (of course) who is always there to help you out, and Marcus Green for his wonderful mocks and Tutorials. That's all for now, I'll add more tips later and I will be only too happy to answer your questions.
Regards, - Manish Sun Certified Java Programmer [ March 23, 2002: Message edited by: Manish Hatwalne ]
Rob Ross
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Congratulations Manish!
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Valentin Crettaz
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Congratulations Manish Way go to and good luck for the future. I hope you'll stay around for a bit
Manish, Congratulations........Great score..... I've been checking javaranch for a week now, and I've read lot of your posts. I'm always scared of threads and thats where I lose lot of marks and the fact that your missing 3 out 7 questions in thread makes me even more nervous. Please give me some idea about how to avoid mistakes in threads and what are the good sites where I can get lot of examples?
Thank you all. Now that I can think properly, I would say that I was prepared to loose marks in 3/4 questions, it is always possible to get few Qs wrong because of a simple trick that u manage to miss, it does not mean that u haven't understood that concept well. On some other day, you might get it immediately; but what hurts most is getting 3 wrong in threads, which has been my strong area in ALL the mocks. I always scored 100% in threads, IO in all my mocks, in fact I used to loose marks in Declaration & Access control, util, fundamentals etc, anyway that's life!!! I got 1 wrong in operators and assignment I got 1 wrong in runtype, casting, oops and 3 wrong in Threads And got 100% in other 8 sections including util, which is surprising for me. Hmmm, Neelima, I don't think I am the right person to tell you "how to avoid mistakes in threads" (I guess, the answer is to stay calm but alert; though I don't always know how to do that ) , however, I can tell you how I studied for threads, I read it from Mughal, Mughal makes it much clearer. It's a good idea to open Thread.java source file in an editor and study it, you'll notice that lot of methods are native, which is the reason for its platform dependance. Thread is one area where you can not definitely conclude from what you see on ur screen, you need to know the theory quite well. Write programs, write producer-consumer programs of your own, understand them well. I wrote a small interesting program demonstrating synchronized usage under various conditions, where 6/7 threads simultaneously modified a single shared resource, giving them different priorities and watching the output. (What the heck if I got it wrong in the exam, my knowledge stays with me ) Frankly, thread questions in the SCJP exams are relatively simpler from Threading issues point of view as compared to the real life complex threading problems. Most of the threading issues show up on multi-processor systems. In the exam, it is usually a small thing like infinite loop, a statement after infinite loop (compiler error) which tests you. Watch out for run() method signature, its return type and accessibility modifier etc. Generally speaking, it is important to understand how things work and why they work the way they work. Once you understand this, rest is simple. Yes, the questions on threads - If you JQPlus, ur problem is solved. Else you can try these questions from various mocks listed here. RHE also has good Qs on threads in its chapter based test on Threads. But it's better to understand those concepts clearly, you can always (unles u r like me ) apply them on any problems at hand. I have made some last minute revision notes on many topics, I'll compile them in an HTML and put it here if you want. More later, - Manish SCJP My education was progressive discovery of my own ignorance.
Originally posted by Neelima Rao: Manish, Congratulations........Great score..... I've been checking javaranch for a week now, and I've read lot of your posts. I'm always scared of threads and thats where I lose lot of marks and the fact that your missing 3 out 7 questions in thread makes me even more nervous. Please give me some idea about how to avoid mistakes in threads and what are the good sites where I can get lot of examples?
Originally posted by Valentin Crettaz: there's so much to learn. No kidding
No no!!! Ansolutely not, I am serious. I am very much interested in XML, I'll be starting with it now, once I learn it properly, I might consider certification. Two things that I forgot to mention yesterday - 1)There is no ambiguity in the wording of exam questions, they are properly worded. 2)When you mark the questions during exam, at the end they will be highlighted in yellow. Be sure you "unmark" the questions before submitting the exam, otherwise they will not be considered attempted, you'll not get marks for those question. I didn't find this information anywhere earlier, thought I'll share it with you. - Manish
Valentin Crettaz
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No no!!! Ansolutely not, I am serious. Yeah I know I know Be sure you "unmark" the questions before submitting the exam, otherwise they will not be considered attempted, you'll not get marks for those question. I'm not really sure of that. I left questions marked when submitting my answers and it didn't change anything... A purpose of a mark is just to remind you not to forget to answer the question.
Be sure you "unmark" the questions before submitting the exam, otherwise they will not be considered attempted, you'll not get marks for those question. I'm not really sure of that. I left questions marked when submitting my answers and it didn't change anything... A purpose of a mark is just to remind you not to forget to answer the question.
Really??? I thought so, but the lady at prometric said so. But you must be right, the local promertric experience was really pathetic. They had n/w problem out there, so I saw an "error message box" after I finished my exam, so I never actually saw my result on the screen. I got a printout after waiting for 10-15 mins, unfortunately the printout also is smudgy, I am sure they must have got the printer from some scrap store - Manish
Vanitha Sugumaran
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Congratulations Manish Vanitha.
Valentin Crettaz
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I really start thinking that Prometric should do a big cleaning in their test center list because from what I heard lately some of those test centers are really crappy and I'm pretty sure it has bad influences on one's results. [ March 24, 2002: Message edited by: Valentin Crettaz ]
Thnks Vanitha I agree with you Valentin. As promised, I have put up my SCJP Revision Notes in an HTML format. It became quite a big document, so couldn't post it here. Let me know if there are any mistakes/typos in the documents. HTH, - Manish
Matt Ghiold
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Thank's Manish, Very nice tips/notes, I am taking my exam tomorrow, and I am definately going to read them before I got in, to jog my memory. -Matt
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