I took the exam today as scheduled cos it would have been a waste of money even if I re scheduled it. I passed. (80 marks. Pass mark is 77) For anyone else's reference, the exam difficulty is exactly as those questions I posted before. This is the first time I'm taking a professional certification. So I want to list down my experience for others.
Somethings to remember :
1. I've faced GRE before, this is not like it at all. The questions don't adapt. They make you think
2. Every question is a program, which you have give output.
3. I did not have time. In the end, I attempted 12 questions in 12 mins. The last question in 1 min.
4. The questions are designed to make you be very sure of the concept. I thought three questions repeated in the exam. To my horror, there were small changes in the code here and there in all three questions. I answered compilation failure to one and run time failure to another. I have no idea what the real answer is.
5. There are some exams you can say you passed when you come out. This is not one of them. I kept track of how many questions I had guessed. When I was in the 25th question, I knew 5 questions were wrong. So please pace yourself and I told myself that I must not make anymore mistake. Balance this with the time left and move on if you have too (i think this is the reason why I actually passed!!)
6. Do not do the mistake of looking at sample questions online before the exam. I went through sample questions online and the same questions with same class name came. But when you actually work the answers out, they are different.
7. It's strange but I was tested for my tolerance along with my knowledge of Java in the exam. There were questions that ask you how many times a certain loop will execute and how the output will get modified as a result. This is simply maths. Not programming.
8. NIIT center sucks. The systems are slow. And apart from showing original identification proof, I had to provide a zerox copy of the same. (This is not mentioned in the identification policy)
9. Before I wrote this exam, I was of the opinion that SE 6 is outdated so I should take SE 7. In reality, I was probably the only one who wrote SE 7 today. Every one else in the room wrote SE 6.
10. My only resource for the exam was this page from oracle
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/extra/certification/javase-7-programmer1.html and the first chapter in Esterban's Java practice questions book. (The rest of the chapters are for Programmer 11 which I'm going to take in a months time)
Hope this helps for someone freaking out like me =)