K Mudof

Good on you. Got SCJP under belt, move step forward. Shame though, you finished so quickly, maybe you could bump up few more points. Anyway congratulations

k

Michael

50%+ in Examlab is good result, you will pass for sure. Dont over stress ;-) Relax a day before, read some good notes, have a good sleep. SCJP wont be some kind of horror ;-) I would say you are ready. Have your chance and post back with your result. In the worse case scenario you can retake, but I would not bother too much. Passed is passed, base to jump higher.

k

Sandra,

yes, SCJP is more difficult then it looks. Particularly if good result. more then 90%, is desirable and someone does not have recent few years java programming experience.

With K&B book I would suggest printing "Two-minutes drill" sections. That is good base for remembering tricks you might encounter during exam and mock up tests. AND on top of that updating those drills with short explanation, notes and short examples to remember API ect. Whole K&B book is too extensive for this purpose. You cannot go trough whole process of understaing the problem you forgot, particularly if it runs through quite a few pages. It takes too much time. Good, to the point notes are crucial. Thats what I should do much earlier rather then going through K&B book again. My learning would be much more effective.

And write a lot of small snippets, from memory. Its good way of memorizing.

And obviously it always good to check test code for usual suspects: final variables, overrinding issues, scoping access and more and more...

Get also Ethnuware. They provide 13 or so unique mock up tests for very reasonable price. Dont rush to run all of them. Take one or two. See you weak sections, update your knowledge. Do one or two more tests again. Dont fall into trap of memorizing test answers which will skew you mockup test results. By the time you will get to the last test, you will forget answer from the first one, so you can start again and you will be force to remmebr concept and Java rules behind and based on that find correct explanation, rather then just recalling look of a question. Use it as learning tool and verification mechanism as well.

Good luck

k

SCJP 6 passed at close to 80%. Not too good, not too bad...

First of all thanks to Java Ranchers for sharing knowledge not only in Java problems, but in general programming context. So I would like to share my experience for those who will follow...

Little background. I have been doing Java programming years, years ago. Then had a quite different and exciting career, which after long years of fun I decided to wrap around and put on a hook. So here is a reason for my comeback to Java and SCJP. In short, I had to relearn Java basics almost from scratch. Hope this will put coming next points in some perspective.

I spend about 3 month, with few longer breaks due to heavy load of work, studding SCJP effectively 1-2 hours per day. Sometimes longer, sometimes not at all.

I started with K&B book as advised, which I read 2-3 times, tried to understand and remember concepts, details, tricks etc. I must say I have mixed feeling about this book. Its loose narrative style does not fit me that well. Particularity when some easy problem explanation is spread over few pages mixed with jokes and anecdotes. Whereas later some other important concepts are so condensed that literally every sentence matters. I would prefer less jokes, less pages and more focus problem explanation. So probably I spend too much time on this book alone. Some people might like it, I should move forward sooner.

After that I started to do random quizzes and mock up tests published on the internet, which soon I managed to clear 70-80% most of the time. Then I tried short quizzes from K&B book, not so good results here at that stage, only 20-30%. At the same time I tried Examlab and of course results were disastrous, around 15-20%.

So being only 4-5 weeks from the exam I decided to move toward more intense learning. I bought Ethnuware soft, which during practice I found to be quite a good product. Initially the very first few tests I was doing at 40-50%. Later, closer to the deadline I was on average 70%, sometimes closer to 60%, sometimes closer to 80%. In general I find Ethuware more or less on similar difficulty level as the real exam. Maybe slightly more difficult in some aspects, but not 15% more as reports from Ethnuware users show.

BTW I tried Whizlab, but I hate online software. So I canceled the license, had some heavy fight to get money back. Not good experience at all, I don't think I will tried this soft anymore at all.

After few hard weeks I manage to pass K&B mock up exams at around 60% and Examlab at 40-50%. In the meanwhile I tried to write a lot of small programs to remember API, which probably was my weakest side. I tried to remember as much as I could, but there is so much API and so little time ;-) Guys with more practical experience should have easier task here.

So finally the exam came. Testing center was rather disappointing. Early 1990s, 15'' monitors with 65Hz refresh. My eyes started to hurt me after 1 hour!!! Air conditioning way too cold, freezing. No bottle of water allowed. Question to Prometrics: are you nuts for your policy? Am I going to cheat with small bottle of water? Crazy policy!!! I will think again if I need any other certification from you... absolutely ridiculous approach.

Questions wise. I found the exam slightly out of my comfort zone. Mostly because of obscure font used and lack of keywords being bold, which helps to read through code in Ethnuware. Secondly come question look easy, but as it turned out with lot of tricks and misleading involved!!! Anyway, I manage to pass at very reasonable level all objectives, except Collections/Generics and Concurrency. I knew with Collections I was so so, but Threads were definitely harder then I expected and practiced. Basically that was the part that stopped me reaching +85% score I think. Maybe other test would be easier ;-)

One more advice. Write many, many small programs and practice a lot API. Once you get general concept, thats good, but without practice, few forgotten API function can sink your result!!! You should know K&B book API provided up side down. If I would have 2 more weeks I would get better result. Oh well, anyway, SCJP is passed. Time to move forward...

Thanks again and hope this experience will help somebody,

k

Epilog: after an email send to Whizlab suggesting very decisive steps with my credit institution and paypal, namely fraud claim, the fund for canceled SCJP exams were transfered back immidiatelly by paypal.

Question is: why it could not be done before? Why I had to write number of emails, messages and wait almost two weeks to have such a simple issue solved? Is it becasue Whizlab was not able to separate easly with already transfered funds? Or because they dont have any stuff available dealing with urgent matte?.I am not going to check it, this approach is not for me. Enthuware products and support is much more preferable.

k

To keep you guys updated.

As there is virtually no support and I am not satisfied with this product at all and havent use it at all, I decided to pull off and ask for refund. That was last week

Of course number of email ended up with automatic reply. Finally I was able to connect to their chat and have a talk to their representative. I was told money will be refunded maxiumum within 2 days. Which is strange anyway as paypal transfer is instant.

Well today, 5 days after the chat, no money, no contact, nothing.

I reported it to my credit card institution and they will chase those bastards.

Will keep you updated.

k

Next problem with Whizlab and again not response. Have been waiting 3 days for getting an answer by email, so far dead end.

This company does not have any support whatsoever. Thos was the first and the last product I bought. Sorry Whizlab, but that simply not good enough.

k

Send the third email to Whizlab support. Got standard response "We have received your inquiry and are assigning it to a representative blablabla". But still no authorization key...


k

Quick question about Whizlab. I purchased it online 2 days ago, paid buy paypal - instant pay. I expected to receive authorization key instantly. So far no key have been provided me. I wrote two emails to the support. The first one seemed to be completely ignored. The second got responded, somebody its reviewing my purchased and will be back soon. But so far no response.

Well, its not good experience. Did anybody have the same problem? I am considering pulling back my credit as my exam is approaching soon and I need the software now and would rather spend my money on other soft if this one is not available.

k

I think I understand my mistake. In K&B book blocking actually means getting a lock and holding it when till the method execution is finished. So thats a good thing, thats what we want. Where as in the next example on the same page quote is: "synchronized, satic and non-static method will not block each other, ever". And thats bad, becase it defeats our intention of synchronization.

My mistake was misinterpretation of a word "blocking". I had in mind "deadlock".

k

Thanks Jesper. Yes, it works as you say. However K&B book suggests they will block each other becasue "they (both threads) lock on the same Class instance". So is it a mistake in the book or my misinterpretation of blocking each other meaning non of this threads will be able to execute the method, because both will wait for each other to grab and execute the method?

Ok, subquestion. How could I modify this code so both threads actually will block each other?

Thanks, k

Hi everyone.... the first post Btw, congratulations for indeed a great forum!!!

My question is regarding K&B book, specificly about "threads calling static synchronized method in the same class will always block each other", page 739.

So I prepare a little piece of program below with expectation my computer will start to levitate when those threads will fight for my bueatyfull static method. Here is the code:

public class Test{ public static void main(String[] str){ myRunnable r1 = new myRunnable(); myRunnable r2 = new myRunnable(); Thread t1 = new Thread(r1,"T1"); Thread t2 = new Thread(r2,"T2"); t1.start(); t2.start(); } static synchronized void printCode(){ System.out.print(Thread.currentThread().getName()+" prints: "); for(int i=1;i<=5;i++) { System.out.print(i+" "); try{ Thread.sleep(100); }catch (InterruptedException ex){ } } } } class myRunnable implements Runnable{ public void run(){ Test.printCode(); } }

Unfortunatelly, when executing this little program, my computer does not leviate nor even JVM freezes. Instead I have rather boring console output:

T1 prints: 1 2 3 4 5 T2 prints: 1 2 3 4 5

My question is: why? Do I misunderstand what "blocking "means?

Thanks in advance,
k