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Passed SCJP2 today ...

 
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...score wasn't great, 76%, but I'll take it
As background, I started studying during the last week of August;
spent approximately 20hrs/week. While I'm a Notes Developer I do
not have a programming background (originally a Certified General Accountant). I've dabbled with a number of languages: Basica, QBasic, Rexx, LotusScript ... mainly used to write quick one-offs to manipulate files. I have no practical experience in Java programming and do not use it at work.
My score broke down as follows:
Declarations and Access Control100%
Garbage Collection100%
java.lang package100%
java.io package100%
Language Fundamentals88%
Flow control and exception handling85%
java.awt package75%
Overloading, overriding, Runtime type57%
Threads57%
java.util package50%
Operators and assignment42%
Not sure what happened with operators and assignments. Had no
problems with them on the mocks. There were a two or three
questions involving prefix/postfix operators, 1 shift question,
two involving short-circut operators and one on ~. Think my
downfall was the prefix/postfix and mixing up precedence.
4 questions on Collections. Make sure you know which are
ordered/unordered.
5 questions on Threads, 3 involved code. One 30-line question.
AWT questions centered on Layout Managers and what happens when
you resize containers. Make sure you know the default layouts
for the containers and how they handle preferred size.
4 or 5 code examples with loops. Read Ajith's tips! Came across
a few of the standard traps. Especially watch out for non-boolean
loop expressions!
io questions were fairly straight forward. Need to know the
constructors for the main stream types.
4 or 5 questions involving String and StringBuffer. They were
fairly straight forward if you remember that Strings are
immutable.
2 array questions. Need to know how they are initialized and
legal assignments. One involved multi-dimensional arrays.
1 question relating to main().
1 GC question.
Had one 'is a' vs 'has a' type question.
2 on Anonymous classes.
4 or 5 on access modifiers; what can be used where.
2 or 3 on inner classes.
1 on identifying keywords.
A few questions centered around constructors.
One dubm thing I did (even after reading all the warnings )
was to spend too much time on questions I didn't get right
away. I ended up with 30 minutes to go and 14 questions which
I rushed through in 20 minutes and then spent the last 10
minutes re-checking them.
If you think you're taking to long on one question, mark it
and go on. You can always go back at the end.
As a whole, the questions were clearly stated. Not anywhere
near as amibiguous as you find on the mocks. There were two
strange ones; they asked what value of var x would be output
by line x; then line x was blank! I made the assumption that
a System.out.println should have been on the line in question.
Think this was right in one of the cases as it involved
a String and scored 100% on the java.lang section; no idea
if my assumption for the 2nd question was right.
Well, that's all I can think of for now.
For those of you still to write ... make sure your fundamentals
are sound; and write as many pieces of code as you can!

------------------
Jane
The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity.
-- Dorothy Parker
 
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Hi Jane,
CONGRATULATIONS!!

Shree
 
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Congratulations Jane.
It's great to get through - and that's most important.
I did the same mistake(?) you did - spent too long initially on some questions and had score very similar to yours(77%). We are in the same boat brother!!
Aniruddha
 
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Hi Jane!

Congratulations Jane!!
Best Wishes for ur future ventures!!
Hope u hang around here and help us all
Cheers,
Jeban.
 
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Congrats Jane!! Thanks for the notes. I'll hopefully be sitting for it soon, but with the baby on the way, I may wait until he is born. Should be any day now.
And I didn't know you were a CPA, me too. So which test was easier, this one or the 3 day CPA's exam? I did pretty good on that one, but I studied for a good eight months before I took that test.
 
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Congratulations, Jane and thank you for answering the questions that I posted at this site several times. Could you advise me where to find Ajith's tips on loops? Thanks. My e-mail address is jiapei_jen@yahoo.com
 
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Wow!! Congratulations Jane.
 
Jane Griscti
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Thanks for the congratulations ... have to admit, it's a relief to get through it
JaiPei ... glad my postings helped. I'll dig out my link to Ajith's tips for you.
Johnathon ... I'll be around; as a moderator I promised I would
Bill ... didn't know you were about to become a father ... your first? ... and a Christmas baby at that ... congratulatins
My accounting designation was CGA .. it's Canadian, eh . The courses were all self-study; took 5 1/2 years, I obtained my certification in 1982(??) but let it lapse (stopped paying my dues) in 88/89. The last two years were very difficult ... passing rates were in the 20% range ... but no 3 day tests! Although I think Chartered Accountants (CA's) in Canada go through a similar gruelling exam period.
I'd place the SCJP on par with Tax exam (that WAS a tough one!). It is certainly more difficult than the Notes Certification exams ... I scored in the 90's on those last year; although, I also had 6 months practical experience.

------------------
Jane
The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity.
-- Dorothy Parker
 
Ajith Kallambella
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Some of the tips were plugged into the Certification FAQ page. You may read them here. The original post however, is far more interesting because we discussed some tips in detail.
I am sorry I don't have a link, but you may want to just run the search utility and search by keywords. Try "tips traps Ajith"
Ajith
 
JiaPei Jen
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I tries to search by "tips traps Ajith" and could not find anything. Please advise me the link to view Ajith's tips on loops.
 
bill bozeman
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Jane,
This is actually my third. All boys and the next one is a boy also, well at least that is what the ultra sound said. Christian, Aidan, and soon to be Joshua.
I passed the CPA's in 94 but never got certified because I didn't have the public accounting experience, and I soon found out that I like programming better.
Congrats again,
Bill
 
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Hi! Jane,
Good to hear that u r SCJP2 now, great and hope u will continue to be a bartender.
Anil
 
Jane Griscti
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Hi JiaPei ... found it
Ajith's traps, May 18
Hope they help... oops, no, I know they'll help

------------------
Jane
The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity.
-- Dorothy Parker
 
JiaPei Jen
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Thanks, Jane. I am going to take the same exam pretty soon.
 
Greenhorn
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Could u please tell me what are all the sites u visited to take mock exam.
 
Greenhorn
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What is the score required to Pass nowadays?
 
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Congratulations!
 
Ajith Kallambella
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Meena Rao,
Here is the list of mock exams - http://www.javaranch.com/maha/_Mock_Exams/_mock_exams.html
Good luck,
Ajith
 
Jane Griscti
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Brad,
The passing score is 61%. Sun is now posting the time as 120 minutes, not 90 minutes as it was originally set on October 4th).
You can check the details as http://suned.sun.com/USA/certification/progdetails.html#Java2
Thanks Vladimir
Jane
 
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It is very nice to listen so many members of javaranch are clearing SCJP with ease & elan. I am a new member to this site. I got good knowledge in java programming. unfortunately iam not getting enough courage to give the exam . after reading through the experiences of various SCJP's finally i decided to go for it
I will be in touch with you all.Wish me all the best.
Thanks
srinath
 
With a little knowledge, a cast iron skillet is non-stick and lasts a lifetime.
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