This is a little story about my SCJP-journey.
I got 45% at the first diagnostics test in Wizlab. Got about 65% in the Wizlab exam 2. I was thrilled and thought this would be a walk in the park. Then I got 50% in the third exam. 53% in the fourth and 57% in the final exam. Did the master exam from K&B and got 60%, did the bonus and got only 50%.
I have read K&B and answered the questions. When I read each chapter and did the questions I got between 40-70%. Often around 50-60%. I have re-read the two-minute drill afterwards. I have written about 200 own questions on what I have done wrong on my mock-exams but when I take a new mock, nearly nothing of the new things I have learned earlier are repeating. Especially for things like IO, Date & Locale-question, regex etc. I have coded about 50 small program to practice some.
I have studied this above mentioned for about 12 weeks, maybe 20h per week.
The things I fail on in the mocks are often the tricky questions that almost fool you to look at one thing and then the code doesn�t compile for some silly reason. I also tend to fail API-questions. I feel that I know the basics pretty good but fail on pity things.
My experience of Java before attempting to go for SCJP are 2 courses at the university. Not much coding, just the basics. The last one was about design patterns so no focus on the language. I feel that my coding experience is probably what I�m lacking.
I need some help to get on. I would like to take the test in one or two weeks time and need some help to score 5-10% better at the mock-tests.
What can I do to strengthen my knowledge? Why doesn�t I perform better at the mocks when I feel that my knowledge is far greater than it was when I started to study?
Someone that maybe have been in a situation similar to this one? What are the chances to pass if you score about 60% in mocks?
Radfe