Best SCJP Exam Simulator

[John Sai]

Can someone recommend best suitable exam simulator from the below for SCJP 5 (CX310-055), SCWCD (CX310-083) and SCMAD (CX310-110)???

- Ucertify
- Whizlab
- JCertify
- Enthuware
- EPractize Labs
- JavaBeat

Thanks.

[Removed huge font - this is considered shouting on the internet - Jeanne]

[Treimin Clark]

John Sai wrote:Can someone recommend best suitable exam simulator from the below for SCJP 5 (CX310-055), SCWCD (CX310-083) and SCMAD (CX310-110)???

- Ucertify
- Whizlab
- JCertify
- Enthuware
- EPractize Labs
- JavaBeat

Thanks.

WhizLabs is the best from the given list. However, I believe that ExamLab is better than WhizLabs.

[Ruben Soto]

I am curious. How is Whizlabs better than, say, Enthuware?

These sort of broad questions about which product is better than another must be answered carefully, and providing detailed explanations on why you think something is better than something else.

For example, I use Linux as my main OS, and the fact that Whizlabs is a Windows only application is an issue to me. However, Enthuware is a Java application that works equally well on Windows and in Linux.

From my experience, I think that Enthuware is a great tool. The environment itself is excellent, and from what I can see it is very similar to the actual exam. You often get explanations to correct answers (and most often the explanations are correct.) You can also get detailed reports on your progress. The only downside is that I don't think the questions cover enough of collections and generics, and instead cover things that I am not sure are potential exam questions (perhaps the question banks need to be reworked a little for SCJP 6.) Still, Enthuware is very much worth it, and I have learned quite a few things with it.

Of the others, I am going to try Examlab shortly. I installed Whizlabs but it crashed my machine. I will give it another try after restarting the computer (I am running Windows as a virtual machine under VirtualBox, so that may have something to do with it.)

EDIT: I tried Whizlabs again, and I didn't have any problems with it (except that it seems more sluggish than Enthuware.) It seems like a good environment. Is it programmed with Visual Basic? That might explain the sluggishness in Virtualbox.

[Ruben Soto]

I actually went ahead and bought the Whizlabs SCJP 6 simulator, as I thought it might be useful. It turns out that it is unusable in my system. It periodically hangs the whole system for minutes at a time, and I find it impossible to do any of the exams, as it would probably take me at least twice as long as the allocated 210 minutes. I will try to talk with Whizlabs support and see what they can figure out. If I can't get it to work properly, I hope they can give me a refund, as this thing is not cheap ($49.00.)

[John Sai]

Thank you all for your advice.

I have been using trial version of Whizlab and Ucertify for SCJP 5, but I read some message that saying uCertify has some incorrect errors.
I have been preparing for SCJP 5 exam since May, 2008.

I'm using Vista Home Premium 32-bit. I would like to have the best and most effective exam simulator that can support me best for the exam.

I really appreciate all of your advice.

[Bert Bates]

I'm curious to know what factors are important to you guys when you rate an exam simulator?

Is it the "experience" of the software, or is it the quality of the questions, or some combination of factors?

[Jesus Angeles]

To me, in order of importance (1 is most important):

1. Quality of questions and have correct answers. We want to pass the exam and the exam expects the correct answer. That is why, those in Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates, and Head First series/books are the best. It is not timed or computerized, so I time myself.

If you find out, by research or yourself, that a mock exam has at least around 3% erroneous answers, and they have been around for some time, and hasnt published an errata on it, then I think that is a good mock exam to use - to fail the exam.

For other products, I research on the product's history, price, and author of the exam. Higher price like whizlab doesnt mean better! But some exams from whizlab has very reputable exam makers like that one in Web Services if I remember correctly when I used it.

2. GUI and software functionality resembles the real exam. Surprisingly, some do not have timers, so I put it at #3.
3. Timer

[Paul Anilprem]

Ruben Soto wrote:From my experience, I think that Enthuware is a great tool. The environment itself is excellent, and from what I can see it is very similar to the actual exam. You often get explanations to correct answers (and most often the explanations are correct.) You can also get detailed reports on your progress. The only downside is that I don't think the questions cover enough of collections and generics, and instead cover things that I am not sure are potential exam questions (perhaps the question banks need to be reworked a little for SCJP 6.) Still, Enthuware is very much worth it, and I have learned quite a few things with it.

Of the others, I am going to try Examlab shortly. I installed Whizlabs but it crashed my machine. I will give it another try after restarting the computer (I am running Windows as a virtual machine under VirtualBox, so that may have something to do with it.)

EDIT: I tried Whizlabs again, and I didn't have any problems with it (except that it seems more sluggish than Enthuware.) It seems like a good environment. Is it programmed with Visual Basic? That might explain the sluggishness in Virtualbox.

Hi Ruben,
Thanks a bunch for your feedback. We will incorporate it into our question bank asap. I would like to mention that there are 55 questions on Collections and Generics and they cover all the aspects on which questions are asked in the exam. They do seem less but that is probably because the question bank contains 809 total number of questions Some questions that you feel are not potential exam questions, are there for completeness of the topic and are important for general understanding. Even so, your points are well taken and we will work on it.

-Paul.

[Ruben Soto]

Paul Anil wrote:
Hi Ruben,
Thanks a bunch for your feedback. We will incorporate it into our question bank asap. I would like to mention that there are 55 questions on Collections and Generics and they cover all the aspects on which questions are asked in the exam. They do seem less but that is probably because the question bank contains 809 total number of questions Some questions that you feel are not potential exam questions, are there for completeness of the topic and are important for general understanding. Even so, your points are well taken and we will work on it.

-Paul.

Thank you for your reply, Paul. I understand what you are saying about there being more questions about generics and collections than it may seem at first. I still think that the proportion is a little low (around 1 in 16 questions for both topics combined, based on your numbers) But you may be right in that they cover anything the exam might want to ask. It's just that I feel that if the proportion of questions was a little closer to what you may encounter in the exam, it would make your product even better.

Like I said, I have been using Enthuware for the past 2 weeks, and I feel I have learned a lot of things from it. It is also a very robust system that works equally in Windows and Linux (and in any other platform with a runtime Java environment I assume.)
As a whole, I am very happy with my purchase and I would recommend it to anyone preparing for the SCJP exam.

[Ruben Soto]

Bert Bates wrote:I'm curious to know what factors are important to you guys when you rate an exam simulator?

Is it the "experience" of the software, or is it the quality of the questions, or some combination of factors?

Hi Bert,

My opinion is that the most important thing is the quality of the questions, and the quality and detail of the explanations provided. An exam simulator that doesn't provide good explanations or that limits itself to tell you what answers you got right is of limited usefulness as a learning tool.

That being said, the GUI is also important. To me, the ability to have an environment that closely replicates the software used
in the exam is an advantage. Also, features such as a memory to recall each attempt that you made on each exam, and detailed reports, are very desirable.

Finally, I want a product that works without hassle. If it doesn't work to begin with, you can forget about any other type of considerations. I think that a Java environment is not only feasible, but that it works brilliantly (based on my experience,) plus it gives the users the freedom to use it in their OS of choice.

[Punit Singh]

I think Devaka Examlab is the best for SCJP, specially its Practice Exam 3 and final Exam. It's very tricky, much better than that whizlabs or enthuware. Practice exam 1 and 2 also tricky but bit easy compare to 3 and final exam, you guys must give Examlab before attempting to final exam.

[Treimin Clark]

Punit Singh wrote:I think Devaka Examlab is the best for SCJP, specially its Practice Exam 3 and final Exam. It's very tricky, much better than that whizlabs or enthuware. Practice exam 1 and 2 also tricky but bit easy compare to 3 and final exam, you guys must give Examlab before attempting to final exam.

Yes I agree with Punit. Especially ExamLab is very much better than WhizLabs, because it is a freeware, unbelievable. 8)

[s shan]

ExamLab is now free to download..

[Ankit Garg]

Don't forget Inquisition in addition to Examlab

[Treimin Clark]

Ankit Garg wrote:Don't forget Inquisition in addition to Examlab

Yes, but the topic starter is asking for the "best simulator", so I recommend ExamLab. What about you?

[Ruben Soto]

The Whizlabs exam simulator is working well now. I had my computer disconnected from the network, but I started up with network connection and that seems to have fixed the freezing. I still don't know the exact cause, as I have an antivirus running on the background that might have tried to perform an update on the virus database as well, and that might have created a conflict. I knew this had to be something weird, since I haven't heard anybody complain in the past about the software. All I know it's working now, and hopefully it will remain that way.

[Treimin Clark]

Ruben Soto wrote:I hope they can give me a refund, as this thing is not cheap ($49.00.)

The price of the WhizLabs is country-dependend. If it is $49.00, ExamLab should be more than $80.00, because it is very useful than WhizLabs, what do you say?

Actually WhizLabs is so much expensive. I think they should be reduce the price (to at least $10.00), because there are some free mocks like Inquisition and ExamLab is available for free.

[Ruben Soto]

Treimin,

I think Whizlabs is free to charge whatever they want. That is the essence of a free economy. I personally think that $49.00 is a little steep, especially considering the competition. But it is really up to them to charge whatever they want. They might get more business if they reduced the price though, although I am sure they have already considered that alternative. Perhaps the price list in other countries is much lower than that, and they can afford to charge United States residents much more since they get most of their customers from other countries. I don't know, and I don't really care as long as the software works.