I think having Java experience (not necessarily work-related) will help you get through the exam more quickly because you'll be able to read code quickly and detect coding errors more naturally. But... not all questions have long exhibits.
Also, (IMO) experience tends to make OO-related (esp:
polymorphism) questions easier to answer.
A lot of the exam requires you to be a human compiler though, so experience doesn't really matter that much. You're better off just reading the Java spec.