Jeffrey Jackson

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since Aug 06, 2014
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Recent posts by Jeffrey Jackson

I'm always excited to see a new text on OCA/OCP Java 7 exams. I'm interested in the difficulty of the sample exam questions. Relative to the sources most people recommend on this site (largely being Gupta, Enthuware, and the Oracle website), how do the exams in Sierra & Bates compare? Also, because Sierra & Bates covers both OCA and OCP, is one of the exams under focus more than the other? Thank you!

Tiberius Marius wrote:Jeffrey I have to ask , how are those questions compared to the average question of the exam ?

http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=303&p_certName=SQ1Z0_803

Also i found the number of methods for manipulation String and StringBuilder in Gupta's book very limited to what i ve seen in other books so i have to ask this as well , did you have things at the exam that ware not included in Gupta's book ? I m asking generally but i imagine the String /StringBuilder methods are the best bet.



The sample questions on Oracle's website were of comparable difficulty, or probably even slightly more difficult, than the real exam. Get used to poor indentation, though. You'll see that throughout.

I believe that Gupta's book provided good overall background and was imperative for me as a newcomer to Java, but Enthuware provided more in-depth knowledge. As an example, I didn't know until Enthuware that the && and & or || and | operators were both valid, but the formers are short-circuit and the latters ensure both expressions are evaluated. While a simple fact, I missed it in Gupta whereas Enthuware drilled it into me.
9 years ago

Guillermo Ishi wrote:Any tips for flying through that sheeit? Very time consuming for me.



Here's a tip that I figured out while working Enthuware's Last Day Test. Sometimes, the code doesn't matter. Always look at the actual question and answers before you look at the "Given:" code block. As a simple example, they might only want to know which options correctly overload a single function in the big scrollable code, in which case reading all of the code simply wastes time. When I was reviewing my answers at the end, I found some questions where I had no idea what was going on in the code block, because the question they asked didn't require me to look at it.

Moreover, always check to see if "Compilation error" and/or "Runtime exception" are even valid options before you start reviewing code; if they are, you have to pay close attention. If they aren't, then you can focus on other things. Searching for compilation errors takes the most time, I think. If that isn't even an option, then that is a happy question to get!

Long story short, to save time, always read the question and the possible answers prior to reviewing the code. Enthuware did a good job emphasizing this, and their lesson paid off.

Guillermo Ishi wrote:

Jeffrey Jackson wrote:some required extensive scrolling through code on the screen.



What did you discover during the scrolling? Was all of the code needed to get the correct answer, or did it turn out to be a case of "public void static main(String[] args)"?



Just as a warning, the real exam doesn't have the silly, quick errors that you'll find in some mock exam questions. So, yes, you'll have to review and understand the code.
9 years ago
I took and passed the exam yesterday and posted some feedback that should help with the concerns presented in this thread. I, too, was nervous about time after reading your posts, but it went well overall. Here is my detailed feedback:
https://coderanch.com/t/637747/ocajp/certification/thoughts-today-OCAJP-Exam-Passed

GOOD LUCK!

Paul Anilprem wrote:We are glad to know that you liked our product. We will incorporate your feedback to improve it further.

-Paul.



Paul, I want to thank you and your team for providing an excellent product in Enthuware. Were it not for the detailed answers to the sample exam questions, I would not have been prepared for the exam. The Enthuware exams covered the entire variety of questions and topics seen on the real exam, and for that, I am very grateful. I certainly will purchase your product for any future certifications that I wish to obtain.

I believe that the Last Day Test was the best indicator of success on the real exam. In both, there were difficult questions interspersed with ones so simple that I had to double-take in order to make sure that I actually read the question correctly, and the Last Day Test provided a well-rounded review of the exam objectives. It also took about the same amount of time as a first-pass of the real exam. The sample exams 1-6 did not have that variety but instead focused in-depth on the various topics; as a newcomer to Java, they were essential for my learning. I encourage all aspirants to work through the sample exams to learn the underlying fundamentals and then take the Last Day Test to verify their understanding and receive a proxy (in terms of both time and score) of their true exam results.

As I mentioned in my feedback, my one issue with Enthuware is that many of the questions, possibly up to 10% per sample exam (but not the Last Day Test), were in part or fully outside of the scope of the OCAJP 7 objectives. In my opinion, it would be more useful for aspirants to have the sample exams cover the exam objectives inclusive and then to have an entirely separate section allocated as "Here are some advanced topics that you may encounter in preparing for the exam."

Overall, Enthuware was an excellent and essential product. Thank you for making it available.
9 years ago
Great job, Carlos. I passed the exam today with a 91% and posted some thoughts and my study resources here:
https://coderanch.com/t/637747/ocajp/certification/thoughts-today-OCAJP-Exam

I relied exclusively on Gupta's text and the Enthuware exams. Both were extremely worthwhile considering I had no experience with Java beforehand. I highly recommend them.

Your statement of "My advice is try to get more than 70% when taking Enthuware tests, if not then go over and over again until you understand 100% all the questions" is dead on. That practice got me through the real exam!
9 years ago
Hi all:

I relied on many of your posts as I was studying for the OCAJP 7 exam, and I took it (and passed it!) today, so I wanted to create an account and share some thoughts. This version of the test had 70 questions in 120 minutes with a passing percentage of 63%.

Preparation:

I spent about 10-12 weeks on and off studying for the exam. Prior to that, I had absolutely no Java experience and about two years' worth of developing in C++. I wanted to teach myself Java since it seems to be the language of choice in industry, so I jumped in.

I used Mala Gupta's text as my primary reference, and it turned out to be valuable for both learning Java as well as studying for the exam. I also liked her fun analogies (buying diamonds in a try block, coffee in a finally block... classic). Be warned, however, that her end-of-chapter sample exam questions and full mock exam were easier than the actual exam. That said, I actually pre-ordered her upcoming book for the next level of Java certifications because of how informative and easy to read it was.

After studying my tooshie off, I also purchased the Enthuware (by Hanumant Deshmukh) set of exams, and I worked through Exams 1-6, skipped 7 (since it was marked as "Advanced"), and then took the Last Day Test. It was a good purchase. Exams 1-6 were HARD, but I learned a lot. I am very impressed by the quality of Enthuware's answers, and I highly recommend you purchase it regardless of your primary test reference, especially since it's only $10.

In terms of difficulty, I would rank Gupta's as the easiest, followed by the Last Day Test, and then Exams 1-6 as the hardest (in some order).

Here were all of my scores:

Gupta sample exam questions after each chapter: 81%
Gupta full mock exam: 80%
Enthuware Exam 1: 81%
Enthuware Exam 2: 78%
Enthuware Exam 3: 78%
Enthuware Exam 4: 78%
Enthuware Exam 5: 78% (notice a pattern?)
Enthuware Exam 6: 75%
Enthuware Last Day Test: 88% <- this gave me hope

I also was caught up in reviewing my incorrect answers relentlessly. In some cases, my mistakes were silly, but usually, I learned something new. By yesterday, I was able to go through Enthuware's first four exams, of which I hadn't taken for more than a month, and nearly effortlessly could correctly answer the vast majority of questions.

The exam itself:

First of all, I had a fly bugging me for the first 30 minutes. That was annoying. I wish you a fly-free test environment.

Honestly, my second biggest fear (first to come later) was time. After having a very consistent ~80% on the various mock exams, I figured that I could answer ~80% correct on the real one, too, and other posts that I read suggested that time was an issue. As I started, though, the first 10ish questions were done in under 5 minutes, the last 10ish questions took about the same amount of time, and I only had to guess on one of those ~20. That gave me a lot of extra time to go back and review the middle 50ish questions. The ones in the middle were largely more detailed, and some required extensive scrolling through code on the screen. I actually finished the exam with about 35 minutes to spare, and I used all but a few seconds of those 35 minutes going over the middle 50ish questions.

A hint: Mark every 10-15 questions as for review. Since I needed to jump back to the middle 50ish questions at the end, it was a lot faster to jump to a question number near my target than to click Previous/Next a bunch of times. A second saved is a second used for thinking.

Make sure you pay attention. Both Gupta and Enthuware taught me to look out for silly compilation errors, but the exam was more sophisticated. You're not going to pass by assuming that you can pick out obvious compilation errors. You'll need to fully understand the exam objectives.

Speaking of exam objectives, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the real exam followed the objectives exactly and thoroughly. My single biggest fear about the exam correlated with my sole issue with the Enthuware product: in Enthuware, many questions contained enums, transient/volatile/synchronized/native, wrapper classes, etc. with Enthuware caveating them as saying that some candidates received those types of questions on the exam. I did not; the real exam went step by step through the objectives, covered them all in-depth, and did not stray away. Of course, the Candidate Agreement prohibits disclosing the test contents, so I can't answer any questions about the contents of questions they asked. If you know the fundamentals specified in the objectives, though, you'll be set. The writers of the exam did a remarkable job making sure that the candidate knows the inside and outside of every objective. The test was extremely well-written.

I walked out of the exam thinking that, if I split 50/50 the questions I narrowed to two answers, I would have received a score in the low 80% range. In reality, I received a 91%. During the exam, I thought that it seemed a comparable difficulty to, or slightly more difficult than, Enthuware's Last Day Test, and my score suggests that as well. It was nowhere near as difficult as Enthuware's Exams 1-6, thank goodness. If you can pass those and understand where you went wrong on your incorrect answers, you'll do great on the real exam.

Best of luck to all of you.
9 years ago