Doubts about Certification questions.

[Jorge Rego]

I've bought OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I && II Study Guide and get confused in some questions that appears in the Interactive Quiz.
Here is an example:

6. Given

package a.b
public class Car { }
package a.b.c;
// insert code here
public class Bridge {
  public void cross(Car c) { }
}
 
Which statment(s) inserted indepedently at //insert code here
will allow Bridge to compile?

A. import a.*
B. import a.b.*
C. import a.b.Car
D. import Car
E. The code will compile with any import
F. The code fails to compile for another reason

The first time I look at the question I assume that the code was all in one file and selected option F. I was confused with the 'Given:' and thought 'If there are two files it should say 'Given two files Car.java and Bridge.java'.

Does the real exam have questions like this that leads to ambiguity?

[Roel De Nijs]

Hi Jorge,

First of all, a warm welcome to CodeRanch!

Jorge Rego wrote:Does the real exam have questions like this that leads to ambiguity?

Normally the exam questions are of high quality. I didn't encounter any ambiguous question. But it's always possible a (small) typo is made. When I took OCAJP7, I had to select an answer with a compiler error in it as correct answer, more info here (I reported this question to the OCP team).

And of course there's always the spirit of a question. With your example I would never have selected F as correct answer, simply because I know a source file can have just 1 public class and 1 package statement (which must be the 1st one of the source code file, comments not included). So I assume both classes are in different class files and would have marked B and C as the correct answers.
This question is testing you on packages and the proper import statement. Probably if the question was testing you about how many package statements and/or public classes are allowed in a source code file, the question would mention explicitly something like: "Given the source code file Car.java containing the following code:".

Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel

[Jorge Rego]

Thanks Roel. Your post is quite elucidative. I'm taking the exam tomorrow and been using the OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I & II study guide and the enthuware software. Hope I'm ready.

[Roel De Nijs]

Jorge Rego wrote:I'm taking the exam tomorrow and been using the OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I & II study guide and the enthuware software.

Best of luck tomorrow!

You have used the best resources available to prepare yourself for the OCAJP7 exal, so I'm quite confident you'll pass.