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(More customer reviews)Yesterday I took the Java 2 Programmer test for the first time passed with a 93% score. I have several years of programming experience with structured and OO programming languages but not much of Java. My total Java experience is about a couple of months only.
The reason I like this book is its brevity. I believe a study guide should have two qualities : focus and brevity. This book has both. There are a lot of good Java books that provide general information. The reason you use a study guide for a specific exam is because you don't want to be distracted by material not needed in the exam.
My suggestions for succeeding in the test are :
1. Study very carefully the exam objectives provided by Sun Education at their website. This (and not the contents of any book) is the true exam 'syllabus'. Read between the lines and into the words in the objectives and try to find out what exactly they expect you to know. The objectives change too - the whole section on 'java.io' was added recently and therefore not covered properly in any study guide. I copied and pasted the objectives in a word document and then used it frequently to search for relevant words, (e.g to find out if the atan2 function in java.lang.Math is part of the syllabus).
2. Read a good general purpose book. Since the scope of study guides is narrow they will provide you with a lot of distilled information but will also miss out some. I read the following : a) The Java Programmig Language, 2nd ed. - Gosling, Arnold. Chs. 2 - 9 and 12 - 15 are relevant for the test. This is a very good book and provides a lot of information in very few pages. b) Graphic Java 1.1 - Geary. Chs 5 and 14 for AWT c) I referred to The java Lang. Specification, 2nd ed. - Gosling, Joy, .. as the final authority to resolve any doubts. This book is not a tutorial and may be used as a final reference.
3. Read chapters 1 - 10 of the Exam Cram book (the book under review) thoroughly and do all the practice questions.
4. Read the chapter on I/0 and the four chapters on AWT from the book The Complete Java 2 Certification Guide by Roberts, Heller and Ernest. The reason I did not read the rest of the book is because its bulk intimidated me and I found the Gosling book more convenient.
5. Study the JDK documentation (and code) for at least the following : java.lang.String, java.lang.Math, java.io (according to the objectives in this section). Remember, the objectives on I/O were not published when the study guides were written, so none of these books cover I/O properly. Also, there was a question in the test on the GridbagConstraints class. You should look this class up in the JDK.
6. Take the mock exam at the end of the Exam Cram book (the book under review). For some reason, the book sets a time limit of 90 min. while the actual test allows you 120 min. I think this might be a typo, but I kept the more stringent time anyway.
7. Make sure to take some mock exams available on the web. There are some that are free. I suggest the one available at the 'sarga' website. The reason why I do not recommend Jxam is that I found many of its questions were outside of the exam objectives, e.g., all questions on applets, HTML, JARs, etc.
8. Study the cutout sheet from the Exam Cram book just before the exam as suggested by the author.
The exam will require you to think a lot and analyze a lot of code. So sleep well the night before. Good luck.
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Serves as the perfect complement to all study guides and training materials for the Sun Certified Java JDK 1.2 Programmer Exam. The best way to build confidence is through study of example questions similar to those on the real exam and this book will have numerous examples and a complete practice exam. Includes sections on proven test-taking strategies, warnings on trick questions, time-saving study tips, multiple-part question strategies, and shortcuts.
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