71%, that'll do nicely!

[John Coleman]

I have spent many weeks doing mock exams and reading up (Mughal). I was under pressure to take the exam ASAP due to interruptions to do real work, and also due to revision fatigue!
I felt that when I could constantly score over 70% on JWiz and JQPlus, I was ready to go for the real exam. I knew my AWT methods were weak, as was some of my declarations (inner classes and interfaces) and some of my fundamentals. So I flunked on the harder questions in these categories - but these topics are more academic in flavour than practical.
I got some tough opening questions on declarations in the exam that scared me! However, after about the 5th questions things got much easier, with some real no-brainers being answered in a few seconds.
I made up my own AWT and collections Powerpoint training cards to ensure I had enough knowledge to just ensure a pass.
My advice for high marks:
1) Know you declarations and rules for inner classes and interfaces off by heart.
2) Learn and practice plenty of AWT - this is the biggest single topic.
3) Run plenty of mocks in the last week or 2 before the exam, and don't be interrupted.
4) Ensure you know the majority of sections very well, and the rest (2 or 3) at least enough to answer right 50%.
5) Leave 15 minutes at the end to go through all the questions again as many code snippets contain slight errors that will not compile, but are easy to miss out on. Although not "trick" questions or hard, I answered initially wrong about 6 questions because of not spotting obvious but easy to miss mistakes in the code snippet. This can make the difference between pass or fail when your revision time is limited!
The mock exam engines I used were JQPlus and JWiz. JQ+ has harder questions and better explanations although the english is not so good. The interface is also weaker and the software didn't seem to save my results. JWiz had a great interface, I didn't like it cutting the exam after 2 hours as this impeded potential for revision, and the questions were a little too easy. Both products good IMO, with JQ+ having much more learning value.
I'm keenly waiting for my certificate!
John

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John Coleman
Sopra Mentor
Middlesex House
Meadway Technology Park
Stevenage
Herts
SG1 2EF
+ 44 1438 760044
E-mail: [e-mail]
www.sopra.co.uk

[Paul Anilprem]

Hi John, Congratulations for your success and thanks for your appreciation.
Please do post your scores on this page too: http://www.jdiscuss.com/Enthuse/jsp/ViewAllResults.jsp
-Paul.
BTW, what problem did you have while saving your test? Last time a user reported the same problem but he was actually saving "Test Result" instead of "Test" and was trying to load the "Test Result" (which is just a text file) as a Test.

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[Jane Griscti]

Congratulations John
I'm going to move this over to the Certification Results forum.
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Jane Griscti
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java� 2 Platform