My Personal Experience with SCJP Certification: July 2009

Hi,

My name is Ravi, I am from India and working as a software Professional.I recently completed my SCJP 5.0 certification with 83% and want to share my experience with you.I hope this will help all aspiring candidate who are ready or planing to take the test.Please share your experience by using comment section.

About SCJP 5.0 certification exam

Sun’s SCJP 5.0 certification validates your ability to design applications using Java 2 SE 5.0 technology. Passing this test is essential for you if you want to achieve Sun Certified Developer for the Java 2 Platform (SCJD), Sun Certified Web Component Developer for the J2EE Platform (SCWCD), Sun Certified Business Component Developer (SCBCD), Sun Certified Mobile Application Developer (SCMAD), Oracle Certified Solution Developer and Oracle Certified Enterprise Developer programs, and the Master CIW Enterprise Developer certifications.

SCJP 5.0 certification requirements

You just have to pass one exam i.e. CX-310-055 to achieve the SCJP 5.0 certification. Although there are no prerequisites for this certification, it would be helpful if you have hands on experience using the basic syntax of Java language.

Benefits of SCJP certification

SCJP certification proves your expertise on the Sun Java products and technologies.
Professionals holding the SCJP certification are preferred by the employers and they also get preference in promotions.
SCJP certification is helpful for professionals who want to upgrade their credentials and get recognition from the industry.
SCJP Certified professional can find appropriate jobs easily and get paid more.

Lets discuss how to prepare for it.

Preparation: This is the most important phase of SCJP.First you have to brush up all your basis fundamentals in Core Java.You can use following books for that:

There are lot of other book also to refresh Java basis, but I would say this much Java knowledge is enough to clear the test.Specially book by Katherine Sierra is very much important to score more marks in SCJP.You should study all chapter thoroughly and try to complete all review question given at the end.If you face any problem in that review question give the end of every chapter, you should go back and read the chapter again.
The complete reference is a good book for referring any concept which you missed or did not find in the other book.

Test Simulator: Here comes the second part, after completing those two books you need to prepare yourself for test simulator.This is very important step as it will determine how much you learn and whether you are ready for the exam or not.After finishing the basis in core Java you should know where you stand.Test simulator will help you in determining whether its right time to go, in which chapter or topics you are poor and then you can go back and prepare again.
As there are lot of simulator available in the market, I personally recommend you Ucertify test simulator for SCJP.This is an excellent tool I found and it helped me a lot in working with difficult topics like generics and collection.After completing the books I was not aware which part of my preparation is weak and needs improvement.I went for Ucertify test and found that topics like generics and collection, I am scoring less marks.I went back to book and refer those topic again and guess what I got better marke in my final exam in generics and collection.
Thanks to Ucertify.

Lets discuss about Ucertify .

1. Guided tour of uCertify PrepKit features:

PrepKit CX310-055, Java 5.0 is an interactive software that helps you learn, tracks your progress, identifies areas for improvements and simulates the actual exam. This PrepKit contains 7 interactive practice tests with over 801 challenging questions guaranteed to comprehensively cover all the objectives for the CX310-055: exam. With detailed analysis for each question, over 249 study notes, interactive quizzes, tips and technical articles, this PrepKit ensures that you get a solid grasp of core technical concepts to ace your certification exam.
What I like best is they are offering 100% money back gurantee which means if you don’t get certified in the first attempt, they will return your money.

This is the first screen you will see after purchase and installing it on your PC.

You will have 7 section of practice test each comprising of 75 question.You will also have diagnostic test of 15 question, besides that there will be a final test with 40 question.The best part I liked was 236 question of in form of quiz.You will also have option to create custom test by which you can choose your topic and number of question, Its a really nice option to work on topic

where you feel you are not strong and need to work on!

On the right hand side you will have tips and tricks on SCJP which proved out to be very helpful for me:

The complete simulator will cost you $67.49 which I think worth investing as it is related to your career and also comparing to the features and importance of this test,it is worth putting money in this.
There is a trial version also available which you can use to judge its importance, but purchasing is a nice option as it gives you more feature and control over your exam.Following is the difference between trial and final version as given in the website respectively.

Full length interactive tests	1	7
Challenging questions with full explaination(inc. Quiz)	15	801
Articles, How Tos.., Tips
Study Notes	40	249
Detailed reports and analysis tools
No timelimit, no registration
No adware, malware or spyware
24X7 Support
Unlimited upgrade up to 1 year
Unconditional 100% money back guarantee

For detail list of Preparation Guide feature, please download this Pdf.

PrepKit Feature Guide

PrepEngine Features
Learn more about PrepEngine Learning plateform philosophy.

2. How to use uCertify PrepKit effectively:

To get maximum out of uCertify always start it after completing basic as I mentioned the books above.Do not jump directly to simulator.The best way is first study tips like Exam bjective,study notes, articles, and study tips.Then go for interactive quiz as it always refresh your preparation and get some confidence if you studied well.Then go for practice test and find weak topics of preparation, A custom test can also help you in that.

3. How uCertify contributed to My success:

As I discussed earlier also the biggest benefit I have received from uCertify is I came to know about my weakest topics i.e, Generics and collection, then I worked again on these topic and able to solve most of problems based on that.And all it took me couple of days to do that.The tips and study material also helped me a lot to work on last finishing touch for exam.Flash card helped me to memorize important point at the last.Anf best part was customize test by which I only concentrate on test mainly comprise of generics, collection, and concurrency.

4. My experience with uCertify PrepKit:

After finishing my basis books by Katherine Sieera, I was looking for some good test simulator which I can try.I found one test preparatory simulator which I really did not like, Then my firend told me about uCertify and believe me after purchasing it I really was feeling very confident.During exam after half question I knew that I will clear.And all the confidence was from my favourite test simulator uCertify.I was scared before exam because I was thinking that I may fail, but after trying this simulator I was confident.
Now after SCJP I am next on SCWCD and I already grabbed a copy of SCWCD simulator by uCertify and going to take test soon.

Click here for more detail on uCertify

5. How uCertify can be Improved:

There should be link on uCertify to purchase Sun exam vouchers.We 'll love it!
I found Audio/Video training missing on uCertify
The explanation can be given with relevant detailed referral link.
A Graphical Progress report to know your rank will be quite handy weapon for
all aspirants
Speed and accuracy level with objective wise detail can be a good choice

Final Touch for Exam: Once your basic and simulator will be over you will be ready for exam.just follow this simple tricks just before the exam:

Book your venue and time for test well before advance.Don't rush for it.
Always it will be advised to take test in morning, you will be fresh
Don't work or study hard just before one night of test
Its better to revise important point given in the simulator just before one day of exam
During exam don't panic and always attempt easy question first
Take special care during matching type of question as If you try to open that question again the previous answer will be delete and you have to attempt that question again
Drink water before the test
In the Drag and Drop type questions, the answer gets reset if you try to review it. So, always complete and double check your answer before moving away from a Drag and Drop question.
It would be helpful to solve Drag and Drop questions on a sheet of paper before actually attempting them in the test.
The revised exam has more performance-based questions than knowledge-based questions requiring memorization of API details. So spend more time on hands-on practice, especially of commonly used methods, and avoid trying to memorize each and every API detail simply by reading.
Be clear about the classes implementing the Collection types like List, Set, and Map. Be aware of which of these types support sorting, which allow duplicates, which give the best performance, and so on.
Read the choices properly; don't get confused between 'import' statements and 'import static' statements.
Remember that immutable string objects are returned by the String class.StringBuilder and StringBufffer both return mutable strings; the only difference between them is that StringBuffer is thread-safe, while the other is not.
When you see the usage of varargs in a method, ensure that the ellipsis is appearing as the last argument to the method.
Remember that the super type of generic Collection objects is Collection and not Collection.
Remember that since the wildcard (?) stands for an unknown type, you cannot add to generic types using wildcards.
Know the distinction between Comparable and Comparator and the methods defined by these interfaces.

I am happy to help you with your exam preparation. Please share with me, when are you taking the Exam? and how is your certification exam preparation coming along? What is your success plan?

I hope this will help your success in the SCJP.Do write your comments to me at maxravi[at]gmail[dot]com.

To your suceess,

Ravi P Singh