I passed the 1z0-815 yesterday with 79%. I was initially a little disappointed with my mark. After looking at the other scores posted here on Code Ranch, I saw that it isn’t too bad, taking in account that I started learning
Java six months ago
.
When I started the
test, I struggled more than usual to concentrate, and it took about an hour for me to get “in the zone”. I find the font used on the test hard to read, and the spacing is quite large, so you have to scroll even for short code examples.
I didn’t have so many questions about modules; maybe 4-5. I did get a lot of questions about interfaces and inheritance. Many questions required a good knowledge of the
String, StringBuilder and Arrays methods and their uses. Again, I needed to know generic method overloading and overriding.
My learning path:
• I took the
Oracle Java SE Programmer I course from Oracle. This course is mostly technical, with a little practical coding for each lesson. I found it to be a great intro to Java, and a good foundation to build on. I don’t think its (very high) price is justified, though, and I am sure with the best books anyone could get the same head start. This course will by no means prepare you for the exam, though. Although it covers most of the topics, it does not go nearly deep enough, compared to the actual exam.
• I purchased the both the Enthuware and Whizlabs mock exams.
The Whizlabs tests where not very helpful, except that many questions focus on API methods, which are important in the real exam. I found the Whizlabs tests harder, but not because the technical understanding needed is higher, but because the questions are more obscure, and have many tricks in them. My scores were 55%, 59%, 64%, 68% and 69%.
I used the Enthuware tests more or less as my study guide. If a topic came up in the Entuware tests, I researched it and wrote down what I learned. I found them to be very high quality, with a good material coverage. I was worried that I would run out of Enthuware tests, so I kept some until my exam was approaching. Unfortunately I ran out of time, and so I had to skip test 5 and 6
. My scores were 71% for the foundations test, 70% for test 1, 79% for test 2, 74% for test 3, 90% for test 4 and 73% for the Last Day Test.
• I used jshell a lot, particularly to test out the String, StringBuilder and Arrays methods. I played around with a lot of the code from both the Whizlabs and Enthuware tests. When studying, I didn’t use an
IDE, to help me to memorise the code better, and also to get the hang of reading code with no syntax highlighting.