With 17 minutes to spare in a freezing cold room!
Thanks to everyone on this forum. It was a huge resource. Now I'll return some of the favors I've gotten...
My experience:
I'm a long time senior C++ programmer. In my previous job I did some
Java for about a year. Lately I've been getting interested in Java again (mostly for
j2ee) and I figured how hard could it be to get this
scjp thing! ha!
I bought the K&b book. My work
pattern was to read a chapter, do the exercises, experiment, take the self
test. get totally clobbered by it. get very depressed and move on to the next chapter. Repeat until book finished.
After finishing the book, I went back and looked at everything I missed. Reviewed, learned, wrote lots of code to really drill it in. After 2nd pass through the tests in the book, I was doing much better.
Next step - every mock exam I could find. Tip: when doing the mock exams, you are tempted to look for a hint online or write some code to try something. Don't do it. If you're not sure... leave it blank and miss the question. What's most important is the questions you miss, not the ones you get! It's fun to get a high score in a mock exam but totally useless in terms of preparing you. Make a list of concepts that are not clear that caused you to miss the question. Then learn them.
How hard was it?
It was easier than the self-tests in the k&b book, but slightly harder than the examulator mock tests.
Overall I was probably doing in the high 50% in the book self tests, but I was averaging around 90% in Examulator. Id say the mock tests that I got the closest score on were the three Marcus Green exams right here on Java ranch. I think I was doing around 76% on those.
One concrete tip: Be clear on Generics and collections. There were a surprisingly high number of questions to do with them. It was my weakest part of the score. I got a little complacent with them because the mock exams did not stress them nearly as much.
Anyway, I'm relieved. I'd done nothing with every waking minute for the last month or so except prepare for this exam. Thank you again everyone.
-Bob Damiano
[ October 24, 2008: Message edited by: Bob Damiano ]