Hi,
few days ago i had my
SCJP 5.0 BETA
It was a great experience !!!
Very difficult questions !
A lot of time needed !
Previously i cleared scjp1.4, scbcd, scwcd, and every time i finished in less than 1 hour,
With score of 95%,91%,91, �. BUT �� this time i needed the whole time,
and i�m sure my score is less, less, less, lesssss than 90% !!!
First of all, I think exam objectives, available at
www.java.sun.com, are well done and they perfectly reflect the content of the exam.
So, these are my suggestions for SCJP 1.5 beta ( hope they are useful for someone )
- questions are very difficult, more than scjp1.4 , and take more time to answer
- if it is the first time you take a 5-hour-long exam, think that it is a little harder than
programming for 5 hours, and be ready for a hard work (even if you think you are a master)
- study very well ( as for scjp 1.4, for example ) every
java language "fundamental":
object orientation concepts,
polymorphism, exceptions declaring and (above all) handling
(Runtime, Checked, differences between the two), methods overriding (some difference from 1.4: covariant return type), overloading, (shadowing), casting (both narrowing and widening),
assertions, threads, classes declarations( top level, inner, anonimous�.)
My message is: only because there are new language features,
you must not take less care for "oldest" things ... study those topics
also if you already are scjp, and you think you are a boss: you have to "refresh" them !
- try to recognize if a "piece of code" is an example of
<< is-a >> relation or << has-a >> relation
- try to recognize if a "piece of code" is an example of encapsulation,
an example of cohesion or an example of loose coupling
(I think that to understand what <<loose coupling>> means, you have to look
at an example of NOT-loose coupling )
- study very well the tutorial "Generics in the Java Programming Language"
at
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5/pdf/generics-tutorial.pdf - but also have some practice on generics, for example downloading and installing
"J2SE Development Kit 5.0 Update 1 with NetBeans 4.0 Bundle"
you can use the
IDE to quickly
test what do compiles and what doesnt,
what generates unchecked warnings and what doesnt, what generates runtime exceptions ...
- study how to compile and run java apps from command line,
with particular attention to the classpath
( this can seems a "banana suggestion", but for me it was really a trouble
answerng those kind of questions: IDEs abstracts you from doing this work,
but when you are at the exam...you have not your IDE which compiles and run everything for you !)
- study and understand very well enums, for example i think the following
is very useful and comlete (short and concise):
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/language/enums.htmlwell As usual, add some practice writing some code, compiling and running it
- study very well the Collections class and his static methods for ordering,
reverse, ecc
- study very well hashCode() and equals() methods, for example here:
http://java.sun.com/developer/Books/effectivejava/Chapter3.pdf Also, try to figure out what will happen if you have a class which
incorrectly overrides hashCode() and equals() ad you use objects of that
class in the JCF.
- For a quick look at regular expressions (in case you have not a lot of time),
and related classes Scanner,
Pattern, Matcher, and related things, you can try:
1)http://java.sun.com/developer/JDCTechTips/2002/tt1008.html#1
and
2)http://java.sun.com/developer/JDCTechTips/2004/tt1201.html#1
and
3)http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/releases/1.4regex/
- be ready for a lot of questions on threads, with a lot code to read
( also in scjp 1.4 i get a lot questions on
thread, about 10 threads questions
on 61 total questions )
- don�t make my (stupid) mistake: i didn�t noticed that I could put some comment
to questions !!! Only yesterday, reading a post on this forum, I know I could
comment some question, for example in case of ambiguity.
(Now I wonder if also in �official� exams you can�in this case it is very funny I
never noticed this)
- by nice, and perform the survey !!!
Hope this will help (i know is not a lot !)
I Think thea idea of introducing D&D questions in scjp as in scbcd and scwcd is a very good idea,i like them a lot. All the exam is very well done: Congratulation to the developers !
Thanks a lot to javaranch an averyboby in this forum for giving
a lot of useful info and nice suggestions about certification exams !
I hope my post is not giving �illegal info� about the exam:
in this case, i apologize, and, please, remove the post !
Massimo