How Important are mock tests

[Shakti Sharma]

How Important/useful are mock tests for SCEA exam.

[Tim Duncan]

Sorry, but that's a dumb question. Useful for some people, unnecessary for others. It obviously depends on how confident you feel.
Of course, it also depends on how accurate the mocks are :-)
[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: Tim Duncan ]

[James Hobson]

Normally Mock exams should be regared as a useful way of working out if/when you are ready for the real exam.
Mock exams should not be seen directly as a learning tool, but to evaluate yourself pre-test.
James

[Shakti Sharma]

I know mock tests were very helpful when I took SCJP. But my questions was the kind of mock tests available for SCEA , I doubt that it is of any help for real exam. This is the feedback I got from my friends who just took a SCEA exam. Both got good score. They told me that dont waste your time in mock tests as the type of question you will get in exam will be very different then the mock exams we have. That is there personal experiance that rather then mock exam go for through study of blue prints and other article as you wont be asked direct question in real tests as usualy you find in mock exam.

[Nitin Shah]

Yeh I agree with you, the quality of mock exams are not good there on net. I dont know which mock exams are good. I there any fourm which order mock exam by there quality.

[Shakti Sharma]

I am also struggling with same problem. I haerd that whiz lab questions are good, but that is also an openion. People told me that not all questions are of same quality, also few questions are from EJB 2.0 spec that is not there is real exam. Few answers are also wrong.

[Siva Jagadeesan]

The Exam covers EJB2.0 rite?!?!?!

[AJAY RANA]

No it covers EJB 1.1 .
Ajay Rana

[Sanjay Raghavan]

Shakti,
My name is Sanjay and I am a co-author of SCEA@Whiz, the whizlabs product for SCEA.
1. You are right - a few questions do cover areas not addressed in the current version of Part 1. However this was carefully introduced after the current objectives were adequately covered.
In general you will find the biggest deviation only in the area of Design Patterns - apart from the GoF patterns, we covered a little bit of the Core J2EE patterns. Reasons:
a. when the current version of the exam is upgraded (mostly by Jan), there is wide speculation that J2EE patterns will be introduced.
b. When you are doing your part II assignment, you will find the core patterns invaluble. Patterns like Business Delegates, Service Locators, DAO, Value Objects e.t.c will need to be used, to illustrate your understanding of J2EE best practices. Hence the extra stuff.
2. Regarding your point that some answers are wrong. We did go through a QA session and a Beta Release to remove all errors (software or otherwise) and bugs. However I think it is fair to say that none of us is infallible. So if you should come across anything, please let us know.
In general, some questions may be subjective - (different answers may hold good in different situations). However in the absence of extra information, you will need to exercise best judgement. The real exam is like that as well. Therefore some answers can be construed incorrect, while from other points of view they may not be.
HTH.

[Nitin Shah]

I heard from few people that suns real paper dont try to confuse you, but try to get the best out of you. I dont think you will get any problem when you know the concept well in real exam.

[Shakti Sharma]

Nitin You are right. But problem still remain same is there any mock exam which actulay do this.
I have seen few questions, where they have given choices like
JRMP
JRPM
JDBC
JDCB

[Nitin Shah]

I have seen these kind of question too. Dose real eaxm contain these kind of questions.

[Laddu Lal Meena]

Hi I am new on this fourm. Can anybody tell me where I can get links to mock exams on net.

[Shakti Sharma]

try this
http://www.javaranch.com/scealinks.jsp

[Sanjay Raghavan]

Nitin,
The exam will not only test your knowledge of the concepts but also your understanding. So there are both kinds of questions -
1. In a high transaction environment, when you are primarily dealing with a Java based solution and need to provide business logic, what technology would you use?
If you understand the concept and applicability of EJB, it is a straight forward choice. So the choices could be RMI-IIOP, JCA, Java IDL, JMS and JDBC.
2. Alternatively there will be a big scenario discussion, where some pieces of the puzzle are dropped here and there, and in the end you will be asked to deduce what technology to use. Here you will need to know the capabilities of each technology and narrow down the possibilities by crossing off...E.g., the example in the SCEA PDF from SUN talks elaboratively about the Inventory application and the custom synchronous protocol and so on...the answer is Session Bean. In such examples, sometimes Session Beans are the only way to do it, other times Sesison Beans are the best way to do it and still other times, given the situation Session Beans are probably the best way to do it.
Don't know if this answers the question...but in some instances there may be gray areas and we have to pick the SUN answers. (E.g., many people have told me that in reality they shy away from Stateful Session Beans, but SUN has a definite place for them. So for the exam, you will need to think the SUN way.)
HTH.