Passed SCJP5 94% Today (11/1/2007)

Background:
Do coding on J2SE1.4 for about 1 and a half year several years ago.

Peparation :
(1) K&B book // TRULY HELPFUL
(2) Javaranch forum // VERY HELPFUL
(3) Inquisition Mock exam // SPECIAL THANKS TO THE AUTHOR , it really clear my concepts on Generics and Collection classes

(4) ActualTest mock exam

(5) others mock exam (JavaBeat...)

The SUN exam was simplier than expected...

Thanks to K&B and all ranchers.
I browsed through many SCJP cert forums, but I still think this one is the best.
I will definitely introduce the above to my friends if they want to take the SCJP5 exam.

Some special questions I encountered

1. testing modifiers on Singleton design pattern
2. System-getproperty
3. static class + overriding

um... I am going for SCWCD.

Good luck
[ January 11, 2007: Message edited by: anson chau ]

Congratulations Anson. That is a really high score!!!
But I need an advice from you. When I were taking mock exams, I found some topics which are not covered in k&b book

, whome should I trust k&b book or mock exams. I know that k&b book is a great assist, but I'm afraid that it's not enough for the exam.
Thanks in advance

Thank you,
In my opinion, in real SUN exam, one may encounter some questions ( I think at most 7-9, counting up to about 10% ) that may not be covered in the K&B book. Although K&B is a great book, SCJP candidates should not take it as the only reference. If time allows, it is suggested that you can have a "scan" through the other people's study notes. Javaranch already have some links to them.

In fact I bought an SCJP5.0 book in Chinese, published by GOTOP from Taiwan, I treated it as a side reference but I think it didn't really help much in adding scores in my real exam.

If you encounter some mock exams questions which topics are not included in K&B , you can take a scan on the explanation in order to understand the answer, but deep+board understanding is not required because it is very cost-Ineffective.

um.... I don't know whether it is a good attitude.
I think the mock exam is already a bit more difficult than the real exam, and the problem of Out-of-Syllabus-with-respect-to-K&B is not serious for you to devote much time on studying other stuff.

I think consolidating covered concepts and watching for pitfalls is more important

Hope my experience helps.
[ January 11, 2007: Message edited by: anson chau ]

COngratulations!!!

Thanks Anson,
I think that your reply is very helpful.

congratulations anson

Wow Anson, 94% is an incredible score!!

I would really like to hear more about any areas where you think we didn't cover the topics in enough depth!

Congrats,

Bert

Congratz !

thank-you very much to the above

This is really a wonderful place .

Bert :
Thinking back to my real exam, about 90% of the questions were covered/implicitly implied by the K&B "STUDY GUIDE", which is already very enough for a single book I think.
little Java programming background + K&B + JavaRanch forum + others mock exams, have already form a perfect match.

If something have to be squeezed out from me, I would like to suggest adding more explanation on modifier+class+method+instance variable combination/restriction

[ January 12, 2007: Message edited by: anson chau ]