Monday, December 10, 2007

Thanks to...


Here is a list of people i want to thank to...







































































Name


Saurabh Sawant

My best friend ... he helped me a lot in all ways. He gave me a good collection of dumps and mock exams. He solved few of my doubts. I discussed with him a lot. He even use to ask me often if i have given the exam. ...here i am DUDE ! .....I AM SCJP .....FINALLY !


Bhushan Kavthekar

My Project Manager. I am very very much grateful to him for approving my week's leave for
the SCJP exam. This leave helped me a lot ... Senior ! ;)


Yogesh Waghmare

Had it not been for Yogesh, i would have forgot that i was suppose to give the exam. He reminded me about it every time he asked, "Omkar, exam dilis ka ?" ...just kidding! He also actively participated whenever i discussed some concepts in core java with my other friends.


Basker Nadar

I remember that i discussed the exam questions and some java fundamentals to a great extent with him. I remember, my self asking him doubts, when i was free and he was busy in his own work, disturbing him! Sorry anna, but that helped me a lot!!!


Gaurav Goel

Goelji ! Thanks a lot! He is next after Basker with whom i discussed a lot. But he was not as busy as Basker. Whenever we were free, we use to discuss and ask questions to each other. Gaurav's Exception handling fundas are ..."TOO GOOOOOD ! ...TOOOOO GOOD !" :)


Barnali Bhatacharya

"Chutti pe kab jaa rahe ho....Tum exam DIYE HO?" ... thats my Bengali team mate. :)


Yogesh Salunkhe

One of my cool and hilarious, friends who always wanted my help on this exam. He wanted to give one too !... i hope he still wants to give this exam. Start reading from the first post Yogesh !

Puneet Swarup

Punnu is my old friend since graduation. He too supports Java and hates the Fucking Microsoft softwares and technologies ! He was of great help when you have doubts in logic and loops. Thanks Punnu ! Probably he will exam too. ALL THE BEST DUDE !!!




Saturday, December 8, 2007

To summarize…

Efforts i took: -

1) I referred three different books and several sources.

a. The Complete Reference, Third edition.

b. Khalid Mughal and Ralph Rasmussien’s Programmer’s guide to certification, Second edition.

c. Head First Java, Kathy and Sierra Bates.

d. Javaranch community … my personal thanks to this community.

e. GOOGLE, used it heavily.

2) I tracked my own efforts in the form of time and score, in excel sheets.

3) I wrote my own programs to understand a particular concept. I just cannot by heart a particular thing…blindly at least!

4) Made my own notes (and wrote a blog on collections so far).

5) The programs and notes structure was designed by me.

6) I bought a good Dell Laptop for myself, since my PC was too slow for eclipse 3.1, and I could not compromise on time.

7) Regularly, discussed some java topics with my office colleagues. I am thankful to them.


Mistakes i made:-

1) Did not take the exam seriously since start.

2) Was intermittently, over ambitious and energetic about exam. Most of the time, I was lazy. Did not maintain my energy levels throughout the exam preparation.

3) I should have given the exam before getting a job…why? Simple! I was not able to work and study and maintain good progress in both the things. Result, was many times I compromised on my study schedule to perform well at my job.

4) I wasted a lot of time, chatting and social networking, which I should not have done!

5) Missed hanging out with family and friends for exam reasons.

6) Made illogical plans.


My Advice: -

You must be wondering, if you should follow my advice, especially when I have scored so less! Well, it’s up to you. I just want you, not to make the mistakes I made. For these reasons, I am listing some points on which you can at least think.

Firstly, you must know why you are giving exam:-

1) Just to have a Certificate on your name.

2) To have “on paper” edge over others in Java.

3) To really have an edge over others in Java.

4) To strengthen your fundamentals of Java technology.

1) and 2) mean that all you care is about one certificate from Sun. You really don’t care about if you really understand the concepts of Java well. If this is your aim, then there is different method of studying. On the other hand, if 3) and 4) is what all you care for, then the method of studying is different.

Method A: -

This is you can follow if your aim is 1) and 2) shown above.

1) Find out the sections of the syllabus for exams.

2) You need a fairly introductory knowledge of basic Java at least.

3) You need a huge collection of mock exams.

4) Attempt as many mock exams as you can, since most mock exams also give an explanation for the answers. So in a way, you study Java the faster way.

5) Give the exam

Advantages of this method:-

1) Fast

2) Short and sweet. Less preparation time.

3) You get certified with good score most of the time. Imagine … you study a million questions through mock exam and in the actual exam you attempt ONLY 61! There is a good chance of getting the same question in the exam as you had in mock exam. At least, a similar question! And you had studied the explanation of the answers in the mock exam, so you CAN attempt SIMILAR questions.

4) You have a good feel of what exam will be like, as you have studied through mock exams only.

Disadvantages of this method:-

1) Fundamentals might not be strong

2) Again a need to study the Java concepts when you give another exam or appear for interview.

3) You tend to forget the concepts with time.

4) A STRONG memory is required … now I assume the worst condition and say that only few people have got good memory! J I hope u agree with me!

Proof: -

You must have seen the table of marks I had included in my earlier list of my friends who scored in their Microsoft certification exam. These friends just went through mock exams and dumps for a week or two and came out with almost 100% result. See??!! Well, may be the Microsoft exams are just piece of cake! After all it’s Microsoft! Yuck!!! There is definitely a big difference between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems exam. Let me give you other examples, one of my best friends, Saurabh Sawant who had fairly good knowledge of basic java within a week’s time of study gave the SCJP exam and scored 85%. Another friend, Nikhil Bhojwani just took 12 days to prepare for the exam, and scored 80%.

Time taken for Method A: -

1) On an average of 2-3 hours per day.

2) One week to two months. It depends on how many mock exams you give.

Method B: -

This is for those people who have 3) and 4) as the aim we discussed before starting with this section.

1) Assuming you have little knowledge of java, first study books like The Complete Reference.

2) After, you get a feel that you know Java much better, go for Head First Java, to strengthen your concepts.

3) In both these books, first filter out only those chapters that are relevant to the sections in the syllabus, and save your time by not studying irrelevant chapters.

4) Lastly, go for Khalid Mughal Book. This book explores many possibilities in a single program. When you attempt the questions from this book, your aim must be to get maximum answers right, as your fundamentals and concepts have been strengthen before when you studied Java from books like, Head first and The Complete Reference. This is because, it is said, that if you get x% by attempting questions from Khalid Mughal, in actual exam, you generally score x+ %. For e.g. if you score 85% from Khalid Mughal, 85% is guaranteed for you. There is a good chance that you score more than 85% in the actual exam.

5) Do not just attempt the questions using the guessing power. If stuck, try out a program of your own to test the question. This helps a lot to strengthen your fundamentals even more.

6) If possible make your own notes, which at least you can understand.

7) After you take so many efforts, give some mock exams, to test your preparation. At least 5-10 mock exams are sufficient.

8) Now, by reading a particular question, you must be able to identify to which section of the syllabus this question belongs. It will be a bit difficult to achieve this level of confidence.

9) Once you are confident and comfortable with the syllabus and Java itself, plot a strategy

10) A strategy that comprises what kind of questions you can attempt first with 100% confidence. You must try to attempt those questions first.

11) Lastly attempt those questions which require some pondering, which also means, that you are not much confident about such questions.

12) This kind of strategy should work, because, roughly you have 2 minutes per question. And it will take you hardly few seconds to answer those questions about which you are 100% confident. That means, you not only attempt maximum questions, but you also save a good amount of time for your self to attempt those questions about which you are not so confident.

Advantages of this method: -

1) Strengthens your fundamentals and concepts.

2) You need not prepare for any other exam or interview again.

3) Helps you think twice, when you start coding while on job.

4) A better score.

5) You will gain a level of confidence so much, that, you can guide or help others also.

Disadvantages of this method: -

1) Very Very Slow.

2) Study material (books required).

3) No shortcuts, programming is must!

4) Score may or may not be good.

Time taken for Method B: -

1) On an average 4-8 hours per day, this is required, since continuity in learning a particular section is necessary.

2) It can take you almost 6 months to year also.

Now, it’s up to you to decide, which method to follow or follow the best of both the world policy. My Best wishes are with you, dear reader. Do not make the mistakes I did. Thank you !!!

The EXAM day ...

Finally, the day of exam dawned - 27th November 2007! I went to the closest prometric center, NIIT Ghatkopar, Mumbai, India. The exam was scheduled at 4.00 pm. When I went, I found there were three PCs allotted for prometric exams, and already three candidates were giving the exam. The co coordinator and my self were doing the necessary paperwork before the exam. One thing I did not understand, is although I signed wherever it was required, I was asked to give a thumb impression also. I wonder what that is for. … I asked the co coordinator "what is this for?", and he said "this is a part of the process as asked by the prometric institution to be executed in every center worldwide, to refrain any criminal from taking the exam." CRIMINAL??!! So criminals also give exams? COOL!!! Later I was asked to keep my cell phone and my bag in a locker provided by the center.


Finally one girl who was giving the exam got from her seat, and then I went and sat on the PC to give the exam. I was getting goose bumps … I was scared! "Will I be able to pass??!! Will I make any mistake while using the application while attempting the exam??!!" I was loosing confidence, with all such doubts polluting my mind. I closed my eyes for few seconds…said to my self “FUCK OFF! … just give the god damn exam, OMKAR!!!” In the meantime the coordinator was configuring the application for me to give the exam. Believe me, when I actually started giving the exam, I got a feeling, that the exam is so simple! SHIT! I was unnecessarily getting scared. But things were going the other way round. The application was really simple, I could at any point of time come to previous question, whenever I wanted to and change my answer. There was an option to mark a question, if I thought the question was doubtful. While I was giving the exam, I was frequently looking at the far right hand corner of the application where the time (…bomb!!!) was ticking! I was given a Card paper covered with plastic and carrying the logo of the Thompson Prometric Institute. Along with this paper, I was given a sketch pen and an eraser. I was allowed to work out whatever I wanted to on that card paper. I used the paper mostly for solving the questions based on string references and programs based on operators and operands. Soon, I reached the 61st question, and found that I have almost 40 minutes in my hand. “WHAT!!!” I finished so quickly, I started looking here and there, other candidates had left. I was alone. “Phew! Now, what to do?” I was thinking, “should I leave early… to avoid the evening rush in the local trains of Mumbai…OR…should I go through all the questions again? …hmmm…may be I will go through all the questions again”, in the last screen, I could see the list of 61 questions and the ones I had marked. By clicking on the question number I could straight away, go to that question. I went through all the questions …and lo! I still had 20 more minutes with me. Now what??!! I thought may be I will end the exam and submit my answers. After asking the coordinator I clicked on end exam, and after that a printer was printing out my score. The coordinator said from the corner of the room near the printer, “Congratulations, you have passed, 65%”. ... “What??!! 65%??!! That’s it?? But…but, the exam was really easy for me. What the heck! With two years of unfocussed, dishonest, lazy study…this is the score!!! Fine! At least, I passed the exam” and this is how I consoled my self. And now I am “Sun Certified Java Programmer!” Actually, I scored well in those sections which I ignored somewhat, and scored miserably in some sections which I thought I prepared well. This contradicted me to a certain extent.


After giving the exam, I did not feel good or bad. May be because, the score was less or I was Sun Certified now! With heavy heart, I went home and slipped into my bed, since I was feeling weak with the exam result or may be due to the medication. After a good sleep, I woke up…and said to my self, “Its ok, Omkar! … You are Sun certified now! That is more important than anything else!” The next thing that hit my mind was the thought of putting down my experience in blog, which will be helpful for others, and here I am writing this blog sharing my experience with you.

How my days passed by ...


To start with, since my last year project was in java, I had fairly good knowledge of java. At that point of time I knew only one book for Java, which was easily available, “The Complete Reference – Java 2”. This is a good book for starters. But as a review the book becomes boring by the time u reach the advance part of java that is the ending part of this book. After that, I got a copy of Khalid Mughal’s “Java 2 A Programmer’s guide for certification”. Although the material in the book is very useful, it is very boring to read this too serious book. In the mean time I got another book, Kathy and Sierra Bate’s “Head First Java”. Now this book is a treat to read. This book is very interactive and useful. But not good just from exam point of view. So I switched back to Khalid Mughal’s book which is actually meant for the certification.

I use to go through each chapter of Khalid Mughal’s book and after each sub-section there are questions related to that, sub section. I took each question seriously as if I am attempting the exam and would jot down the score in an excel sheet. I have uploaded this excel sheet on this site.

For preview reasons take a look at these screen shots of the excel sheet.


The graph gave me a apprehensible view of how nicely understood a particular section. There were several programs to be done at the end of all the chapters, but I did not attempt any. Instead I wrote my own programs to understand what the author wants to explain about a particular topic. After I went through almost all the chapters, I thought it was a high time that I start attempting mock exams. I got a bunch of mock exam pdfs from my friends, Basker Nadar, Jitesh Haridas and Saurabh Sawant. I am grateful to my friends for their help. Now, I started attempting, each question from these pdfs, but with time restriction. What I mean to say is, I use to log time I take to attempt each question and note them down in an excel sheet with the score. But not all the mocks were correct, the typos mislead me on many occasions, and gradually I kept those materials on one side and thought now is the time for me to revise.

Later on I got busy with my project in the office, and had to skip the revision. But I just can’t give this as an excuse. Frankly speaking, I also wasted a lot of time chatting, social networking (orkuting etc.,) etc., For these reasons, I even closed my orkut account! I was missing all my friends! L

I realized I am wasting my own time and energy. I got serious, and thought I need a focused plan. Therefore, I made a chart, with a timeline set, so that when I start revising I have some deadlines that I have to stick to … as time was running out of my hand.

Planned Schedule: -

When I was planning the chart, for a moment I felt like I am a project manager estimating the schedule. However, I was making a mistake, in assuming the time I will dedicate for revision on each day. For e.g. with the kind of schedule I planned, I was assuming almost 10 hrs per day I will dedicate for revision and according to this assumption, I will complete my revision in a months time…which was a bull shit ! I forgot while making this plan that I actually spend more than 8 hours out of my home working 5 days in a week in office. And hence, when I actually started studying for revision, I was able to dedicate only 2 or 3 hrs at the max most of the time. For these reasons, my schedule was out of track.

Actual schedule: -



The countdown was started! … The last date of my voucher that is 30th November 2007 was nearing. I some how managed to revise maximum sections, and left some sections like threads for e.g. Meanwhile, I had a dinner party along with the office team on 23rd November 2007. And on this day I actually booked the slot for exam in prometric center for 27th November 2007. However, the food was not good, and I fell sick. I was suffering with severe cold and high fever. All my last minute revision plans were in vain. I was bed ridden, taking the heavy medication from our family doctor.

Why I chose SCJP for Java 2 or jdk 1.4 ?

Why I chose SCJP for Java 2 or jdk 1.4 ?
  • Most stable version from Sun.
  • Syllabus fairly simple compared to previous versions of the exam.
  • My Analysis on the internet led me to the conclusion that SCJP 1.4 is much more easier to pass compared to SCJP 1.5
  • Java 2 or jdk 1.4 is still used in many companies.

About the Exam...

Various versions of Java have evolved. Corresponding to the major versions, Sun Microsystems has provided different exams. Following is a brief overview of the exam.

Java 2 or jdk 1.4 is the most stable and the best version from Sun, still used by many companies in their projects. Major breakthrough came when Sun launched Java 5 or jdk 1.5 to step up to the competition from Microsoft’s c# .NET. The latest version now is Java 6.

However, as of know a proper syllabus and exam is in place for jdk 1.4 and jdk 1.5, as per my knowledge. Previous versions have been scraped and the future versions might be coming up soon. SCJP is a certification exam, which if you pass, will indicate that you are good in Core Java. Yes! That’s it! CORE JAVA! For Advanced java there are other certification exams.

Facts

Figures

My Figures

Remarks

Code

310-035

310-035


Duration

2 Hours (120 mins)

100 mins

I had attempted all the 61 questions in almost 80 minutes then went through all of them again and was still having 20 minutes in my hand!

No of Questions

61

61


Passing Req

52%

65%


Voucher Cost

5000 – 7000 INR

6500 INR

This depends on the scheme when you take the voucher from a particular prometric center… Now, SUN Microsystems has doubled the price of the exam, so it will now cost almost around 12,000 INR. When I had bought it almost an year back, I had bought it for 6500 INR


Technical information about the exam: - In actual certificate the score is not printed. The actual certificate is issued by the Sun Microsystems and mailed to you on the postal address that you had provided during the exam.


My Journey...


But after 8 months, the company I worked with thought I can be shifted to Java. And without giving certification I was shifted to Java. Now, this incident actually dampened my excitement and eagerness to give certification exam. In another incident when Java training was imparted to us, our trainer asked me to buy the voucher else I will not take my own idea of giving the certification exam seriously. And he was partly correct. I bought the voucher in December 2006 and its validity was till 30th November 2007… almost ONE YEAR! Such a huge period actually made me lazy. Now, I could have studied seriously and given the exam as early as possible from the day when I bought the voucher. After few more months, the company sponsored for the Microsoft certification of some of its employees, following is some information about them:-


Name

Paper 1- 528

Paper 2 - 536

Paper 3 - 547


Amar Seth

1000 / 1000

1000 / 1000

1000 / 1000


Sunil Mahadeshwar

965 / 1000

965 / 1000

1000 / 1000

Sushama Patil

982 / 1000

1000 / 1000

950 / 1000

Krishnendra Singh

947 / 1000

1000 / 1000

1000 / 1000



These are the 3 Microsoft’s paper which my friends they gave and this is their score. This was one more inspiration for me to give the exam ASAP. Now, my friends gave these exams with a preparation time of just a week or two. Can you imagine that? This leads us to some conclusion which I will discuss later.


From the day I decided I want to give the exam till the day I actually gave the exam, it was almost 2 years time that was spent… which is equal to my IT industry experience.

Very soon my other friends working in different companies started changing jobs, and one of my good friends in the company I worked, she also resigned in September 2007. And this made me get really serious about me giving the exam. And finally one day, on 27th November 2007 I gave the exam, and now I am a Sun Certified Java Programmer! FINALLY! I AM a SCJP!

How I was inspired to give this exam...


Hello friends, seeing you all after a long time. Last week I gave my SCJP 1.4 exam and would like to share my experience. I will pour down all the things I did, how those things didn’t work, how some of my plans worked …etc.,

How i was inspired to give the exam...
I was doing my graduation, B.E. Information Technology from Mumbai University. I did not know anything about certification and its possible value, until one fine day in the college one of my friends walked into the classroom with a big yellow color mail containing the Sun Java Certificate.

His name is Hemanshu Ghia.

Hemanshu then flashed out a small debit sized card from Sun Microsystems bearing his name and saying that he is Sun Certified Java Programmer. It was so impressive thing to see. Soon I got this feeling that, I want some such thing too. But, I did not know how and where to start. But Hemanshu introduced me with information I was needed to know. But with all the hectic exams and project undertaking, there was little I could do for the certification exam.

Soon, I graduated and was looking for job. With only first class in B.E. it was difficult to get a job in Mumbai. This was the time when I started again thinking about giving the certification exam. I started my R n D on this exam. Look at the irony, I was tired of the engineering exams, and here I was excited to study and give the exam. One thing is for sure, since my graduation I was attracted to JAVA. My last year project was also J2EE based. I still feel that Java is the BEST TECHNOLOGY. Almost 6 months after getting graduated, I got a job but in .NET. But I wanted to work in JAVA. So, I thought, may be this SCJP will be my gate pass to jump into a JAVA project in either same or some other company. So I resumed my R n D which I had paused for few months after getting a job.


Basically, following things inspired me to give the certification exam:-
  • Popularity!
  • License to jump into JAVA after working for few months in .NET
  • To get an edge over others in the same field, since many java developers are available in the market...But few SCJP Java developers.