Pointers

Hi All
Ok, so I am too much of a C++ programmer, even after passing SCJP
with 95% today. Before I forget, I thought I would give some pointers
about the exam for everyone else. I know I should have written this
message in the 'Results' forum but I wanted everyone to read my two
cents. (While I was preparing, I didn't really go to the Results site
to see who passed...) Feel free to move it to the right forum.
First, if you are using K&B book, keep faith in it. Please don't get discouraged if you find a lot of new things on different mock exams.
I did. I was at a point of rescheduling the exam thinking there is
so much more needed. But the exam is very much based on the
knowledge from the book. Giving an exam on a language is kind of
hard, there are millions of methods and classes in a language, you
have to know what is the scope of the exam. I think the K&B book
is a very good study book.
Second, even though, mock exams do cover a lot more topics, do as
many of them as you can. I pretty much did all of them.
I studied for about a month and have very limited programming
experience in Java in real world, though extensive experience in C++.
Third, I had many more questions on Strings than Wrappers so make sure
you know all those String methods in the book. Thread questions were
about 6-7 but they were not too bad. Collection classes did not ask
about any collection methods. Oh! ya, and arrays, do them very well, too.
Assertion questions were kind of tricky.
Someone on this site had asked to check the timer. For me, the first
two surveys, the Sun Survey and the some other survey, had their own
timers of 15 minutes, which I did in like a minute or two. But the
first 2 questions in the exam itself (out of 61) are the agreement kind
of survey questions and since they are part of the exam, the
counter had already started. I think this is why the confusion was.
Because some survey questions were not timed in the main exam and
some were (namely the first 2 out of 61). (I think there were 2 sub questions attached to those, too)So those two survey questions you need
to quickly read and finish. I did not see the assumption on Assert as
Kathy had mentioned, I carefully read that part, just to make sure I
knew what was expected of me.
I think one thing that is missing in the book and that was on the exam
(or may be I didn't read the book well) is the precedence of operators.
Anyway, that's all. All, in all, it is not hard. I have given a couple
of Microsoft C++ certification and my frank opinion was this exam was
way to easier.....
Good luck to all of you who are preparing.
Thank you very much Java Ranch and all the contributors, I surely learnt
a lot from there. Thanks to Kathy and Bert for an excellent exam study
guide.

I haven't seen any assumptions on assertions either...

Hi Suneela
Congratulations on becoming an SCJP. Great score too !

Originally posted by Suneela Joshi:

But the first 2 questions in the exam itself (out of 61) are the agreement kind of survey questions and since they are part of the exam, the
counter had already started.

What is meant by "agreement kind of survey questions"? You mean you are evaluated only for 59 questions and get 2 free as a bonus?

Originally posted by Suneela Joshi:

I did not see the assumption on Assert as Kathy had mentioned, I carefully read that part, just to make sure I knew what was expected of me.

What did Kathy say on this?
Thanks
Harwinder

Harwinder, read this:
What Kathys said on assertions