I have successfully passed the exam on the fifth trial

[Raef Kandeel]

Dear Ranchers,

I know everybody seams to be able to get it from the first trial. Not me. I had to get it on my fifth trial. But heyyyy, it is better than not getting it at all.

I succeeded with a score of 81%.

I would like to share my experience with the people who did fail and who gave up.

* try to focus more on what you learn, rather on what you gain. The certification stands for what you know.

* Lots of the information that you do learn from the certification is not relevant to the development working experience, but it does simulate your brain and it does teach you how to learn. It is very important to keep this in mind. The certification teaches you to be able to use your brain and I felt that I had a working experience from this certification.

* Whenever you get emotional, post a topic on java ranch and they WILL back you up.

Also, I would like to keep these points in mind when you are preparing for the exam.

* Don't pause the mock exam and don't evaluate your mock exam unless you finished all the questions and never look at the answers or the explanations of the questions unless you succeeded the exam. I know it is tough, but it is the only way out.

* Prepare to give up some of your free time. The time that you used to sit at home and do nothing, you can kiss this time good bye for some time (not so long I hope).

* Don't over-revise your real exam or you would mix things up and you would start getting confused. I haven't revised my exam at all. I just re-read the questions to make sure I haven't misread any of them and I ended the exam.

* Do NOT try to get a high score. Sometimes when you do try to get a very high score you mess up. Just settle for the score that you feel most comfortable in.

* I used HFSJ (excellent focus on exam material), Sun Certified Web Component Developer Study Companion (covers the exam material and gives you some additional nice background information), Whizlabs (good but lots and lots and lots of errors in there), Enthuware (excellent, focuses so much on what you would face on the exam, including the exam interface and so many wide range of questions).

I was targeting giving the people with average intelligence like me some hope.

[Christophe Verré]

I'll break the KeepItDown rule once and shout out loud : CONGRATULATIONS It's great to hear that you have passed after all the efforts you've put into this exam.

I know everybody seams to be able to get it from the first trial.

Actually, we don't know. There not many people having the courage to share this kind of experience.

[Ankit Garg]

Congrats Raef

[Frits Walraven]

Congratulations well done.

Regards,
Frits

[Pramod P Deore]

Congrats Raef

[Will Myers]

Congratulations!

I'm currently studying for my third attempt and your efforts have proved that if you don't give up you can do it!

[Lalit Mehra]

congrats bro

[Roman Mazur]

Congratulations Reaf

[Rajeev Rnair]

congrats mate!!! wish you all the best with future exams!!!

[Vinayak Bhat]

Congrats Raef. Great to hear abt your inspirational story. I am taking the exam this weekend. and I am dead sure i ain't gonna get through the first time. But i am gonna go with all the guns blazing. Let's see Almighty willing i shall at least cross the fence.

Congrats' again. Cheers
Vinayak Bhat

[Lalit Mehra]

@vinayak ... gud luck to you buddy

[Reidar Gjerstad]

Congratulations, Raef!

You have really earned your degree. 81% is very decent in my opinion.

Raef Kandeel wrote:
I know everybody seams to be able to get it from the first trial. Not me. I had to get it on my fifth trial. But heyyyy, it is better than not getting it at all.

* I used HFSJ (excellent focus on exam material), Sun Certified Web Component Developer Study Companion (covers the exam material and gives you some additional nice background information), Whizlabs (good but lots and lots and lots of errors in there), Enthuware (excellent, focuses so much on what you would face on the exam, including the exam interface and so many wide range of questions).

I was targeting giving the people with average intelligence like me some hope.

I suspect that lots of people (including me) do not have courage to publicly announce that they failed.

In this forum one can constantly read about people scoring 90-100%. If it really was so that most people pass with high score on first attempt then Sun would take actions to make the exam more difficult. I conclude that lots of people fail. They mostly keep quiet about it.

If the exam was very easy there would be no point in taking it.

I admire your courage for not giving up. This really is a great achievement. Remember that the ones who pass easily are often professionals and do Java for a living.

About Enthuware: I found that the Enthuware simulator is close to the real exam in terms of difficulty and the tone of the questions.

I will make my second attempt in about a week. I will not give up without a fight!

Cheers

[AjayKumar Panigrahi]

Congrats Man.. You are almost like Abraham Lincoln.. who tasted failure for 30 years.

Brave heart and mind is required to face failure..

and finally you have done it.....

Always follow Swamy Vivekananda .. He says

even if You fail for 1000 times... dont come back without giving it your 1001st trial

keep it up..Go Ahead

[Sridhar Gudipalli]

I had to get it on my fifth trial.

Congrats! You are inspirational!!!

[Chinmaya Chowdary]

Congratulations .

[Raj. Sharma]

Dear Raef,
Congrats for Passing the Certification exam and thanks for sharing your valuable feedback,
We request you to kindly send us the errors which you have seen at [e-mail] so that we can correct it as soon as possible.
Keep participating at Javaranch and share your experience so that others also get the motivation to pass the exam with flying colours.
Regards,
Raj Sharma
Customer Relations-Whizlabs

[Bert Bates]

Awesome job Raef!

[pasindu hewagama]

I admire your courage keep trying for future goals as well!!