Hi all,
First of all I would like to thank Dan Chisholm,
Marcus Green,
www.jiris.com, Valentin Crettaz
all of you.
I have a programming experience(may be not experience but familiarity) of 3 years in c/c++ and 2 years in
java though I used them only for my class projects and my research.I work as a research assitant.I started my preparation 1 month ago and wanted to take it as soon as possible.I Started my preparation around sept 10th 02 as follows ....
1)http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/
2)bought Bill brodgen Java Exam Cram
3)RHS
I have taken a Marcus Green ,John Hunt,BarryBoone mock exams after reading the 3 and scored around 75-80%.At that point I didnt know that there is a discussion forum like this in Javaranch.I used to visit Javaranch for the mock exam list.Then I registered myself and started reading the messages posted in the results section and preparation section every day which increased my enthusiasm.(I was especially intrested in results section
)
Then I came to know about JLS and later after some time Dan chisholm tests. I read JLS and tried to answer Dan Chisholm's tests.But I could answer only 5 out of 10 correct in the first section(Each topic of Dan Chisholm has 2-4 sections).Then I went again through JLS and Java API and answered them when I scored 8-10 out of 10.
Then I took some mock tests Marcus Greens 2,3 and JavaPrepare exam 80-90.I registered for the exam, -- Oct-14.
In the last 5 days I took the Mughal Rasmussen Exam -- scored around 75%.Then I took the mock tests in
www.jiris.com on 10th Oct.The 3rd exam was Damn though and it was for
SCJP 1.2 and I failed in the exam with 59%.I was totally disappointed as the SCJP exam was only 4 days away.I went again through all the tutorials,API and JLS and took 2nd mock
test at jiris.com on 12th and scored only 62%.The exam was only 2 days away and I thought of cancelling the exam which I couldn't as it was saturday(Oct-12).
I noted down the mistakes I made in jiris's tests and went through sections again and again.I took Valentin's exam yesterday (Oct-13) and scored 75%.
Finally I went through all the notes I have prepared and VeluMurugan's notes leaving behind low scores in the last three I took.I had confidence that I would pass but not with 86%.
I thought the exam is at a difficulty level very similar to Marcus Green's exams.Dan chisholm's exams are the best to take when u are going through preparation phase.If u take all of Dan chisholm's tests and understand them u will be scoring fine in the original exam.
The jiris.com tests are very difficult but I attribute my success to them as they made me work more and more on the concepts like Threads,Exceptions,Interfaces and Inner classes in the final days.Some of the most difficult questions I felt in the SCJP exam are very similar to the questions in
www.jiris.com In the original exam I didnt feel even a single question difficult.May be 1 or 2
Thread questions.
But overall I felt the exam was not hard as I thought.
I dont say its easy.
This is my first time posting message in Javaranch and I thought I could share my experience with those who are going to take the exam.
Finally I would like to ask all of the experienced ranchers -- What Next???!!!
