Customer Reviews

The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide

5 star:		(111)
4 star:		(63)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Yesteday, I took the JAVA 2 Programmer Exam for the first time and passed with a very comfortable margin. This text helped alot and I do recommend it. However, I have to say that the real EXAM is MUCH more difficult then the practice questions in this book. The actual EXAM (at least the version I took) requires you to think though scenarios that are not obvious, even from the "strict" information provided in this book. If you want confidence to pass the test on the first try, I would do the following:

1) Read the Gosling book "The Java Programming" Language" and code many of the examples for youself. Use a good Java IDE to step though the code and understand what it does and how variables inside specific objects change.

2) Work through many of the AWT examples from the Java Tutorial (Books or WEB) using an IDE as above.

3) Thoroughly study "The Java 2 Exam Cram" by Bill Brogden AND do his mock EXAM - it's more difficult than the one in the book being reviewed.

4) Take some WEB based mock exams (like MindQ) and/or even purchase the gEs: Java Exam simulator.

Tests are kind of subjective in many ways. Some people are better test takers then others. I highly recommend a multi-faceted approach to preparing for this exam - especially if you want to really understand Java ... and not just pass the test.

I would also say that including the Java 2 API reference at the back of this book is pretty useless and adds signifcantly to the cost AND the WEIGHT of this book. The Java Developer's Almanac 1999 is the best concise desktop reference for the JAVA 2 API that I've seen.

I just passed the exam today with 80%.

DO NOT USE THIS BOOK *ONLY* FOR YOUR PREPARATION.

If you do, and you feel you understand everything in the book, the actual exam is going to be a big shock like it was for me for the first time when I took the exam. Like expressed by other reviewers, this book gives you the *false* feeling that you are ready to pass the exam - even if you read the whole thing. Repeat, if you feel you know everything in this book, you are most likely going to score an average of 50-60% on the real exam, which is not yet a passing score. Its lengthy style is very comprehensive, but you are much better off using your time wisely if you are trying to use this book only to *complement* the Java 2 Exam Cram by Bill Brogden. This book is particularly missing important elements and required knowledge on:

. Constructors . Inner classes . Interfaces . Utility classes (both old and new) . Java IO . Java Event Model . Casting and converting

All of the above are critical to pass the exam. Somehow this book strikes me as a book written by class instructors, not programmers (this is even mentioned in the "Introduction"), so a lot of Java hands-on experience is missing for me from it. There would be a lot more (perhaps one line) code snippets in the book to illustrate right and wrong concepts, valid and invalid lines. Sometimes this book fails to shed light on some class/interface hierarchies your will have to *know* (not just understand) to pass the exam. The book is not updated enough from Java 1.1 to Java 2. Also, do not even waste time on CD-ROM. It only contains low level questions already in the book.

I believe if you take the certification exam, you should have some Java programming experience. Write a small, but real application. This book - falsely - tries to lull you into the feeling of having that experience by explaining everything in lengthy, comfortable detail. This is NOT what is required of you at the examination: you will have to be able to answer test questions quickly and accurately.

Here's the method that worked for me after trying and failing the exam with this book only: Buy the Bill Brogden Java 2 Exam CRAM book. Make notes of it as you read it cover to cover, complement your notes with some of the AWT implications from this book, use Java 2 API documentation on GridBagLayout and the new Collection and Map interfaces which do come up in the real exma. Then learn your notes *by heart*. (There is a lot of stupid method signatures you will have to remember, some of which are not documented in either book, only in the Java2 API.) Make sure you download all the mock exams available on the internet and use Jxam (a freely available testing tool with hard enough questions, none of the others I found were hard enough compared to the real one) to test yourself. Write small example programs to grasp the concepts behind test questions. Modify and understand why and how they can be modified still to compile and run (and not to compile and/or not to run). If you can score about 80-90% with Jxam, you are likely to pass the real exam. Good luck.

Amazed at the negative reviews for this book I thought I would set matters straight. This book is the one and only book I recommend to my students who want to take Java Certification. Why? Because it was written by the people who wrote the examinations! They don't give you the answers directly, but you can bet all the answers are in this book somewhere.

The certification examinations are wide ranging in topic and sometimes the questions are quite esoteric even for knowledgeable Java programmers. Although on the face of it this book gives "useless messages" as another review puts it, lets qualify that statement. If the message is going to be in the exam then the it is far from useless. If the message takes up half the damn page to get the point across then perhaps the point is important? Perhaps the reviewer has not yet taken the exam?

If you are studying for the either the programmer or developer certifications in Java, you have many choices of books to use. I have both certifications and enterprise architect. I speak from experience. There is only one book where is clear, concise and complete. This one.

This book is excellent to those who have Java programming experience. For those who are new to Java, I would recommend the "Programmer's Guide to Java Certification" by Khali Azim Mughal because it provides you a lot of practice exercises to help you understand the theory. The above combination would be perfect. In the real exam, the question style is similar to the RHE and PGJC book but the answers are tricky, make sure you understand completely to the OOP chapter(practice make perfect).Here, I took 10 minutes to break down the 10 exam section before I started to take to helping you concentrate on the major areas to pass the exam: a) Decla & Access Control ( 8 ) b)Flow Control & Exception Handing (6) c)Garbage Collection (3) d)Language Fundamentals(8) e)Operators & Assignments(7) f)OOP( Overloading/Overriding,inner class,etc)(9) g)Threads ( 4) h) Java.awt.package -Layout & Event(6) k) java.lang package (6) i) java.util package and (implicitly)java.io (2)

There are 10 small source code and 2 long ones, the rest are theory.I passed the exam yesterday with very good score. Do not expect a perfect score but rather understand Java concept thoughly. I also purchased the gEsJava2 and Jcertify. Those are excellent mock exams. Very closed to the real exam, but make sure that you understand the concept first before taking them.Good Luck! Join me in the Java legacy <:-).

As the founder of one of the largest certification review sites on the web (OK, shameless plug, Javaranch.com) I have been recommending this book forever. It simply is the one you must have to get through the exam, regardless of your development experience in Java. When you're a programmer/developer, you often learn what you need as you need to, but that's not what certification is about. There are some things you'll need to learn to pass the exam that you might not have ever encountered before. Roberts, Heller, and Ernest are the most qualified to take you through it (all teach or have taught Java for Sun, and Roberts was the key developer of the exam!!).

If you just want to get started learning a little Java, start with a different book, like a tutorial. If you know some Java but want to study for the exam, you must have this book. It certainly worked for me, and I've had this confirmed by several HUNDRED other people I know who've become certified as a result of using this book. As I say in my book review on my site, "this isn't a book you curl up by the fire with..." You have to read each word carefully and study. The SCJP is hard, and you won't pass if you don't really and truly know this stuff, and be able to recognize subtle differences in code.

I've looked at every single other review book for certification, and there are some others worth looking at... but this is the one you MUST have. If you can only get one, get this one and you're fine. If you can get more, get more, but you still have to get this one. As many people as I've seen pass because of this book, I've also seen a large chunk fail to pass because they did NOT study this book. Good luck!

I already knew Java pretty well, but I'll be changing jobs soon and I wanted to put certification on my resume to make keyword-grepping HR bots happy. (Sigh.) I figured I could pass the test cold but didn't want to bet money on it, so I bought this book.

I think it's a pretty good book, but I haven't read any other Java certification books so I have no basis for direct comparison. It's seems a bit dated, but the Programmer exam hasn't changed much in a couple of years (still based on JDK 1.2 without Swing) so that's okay -- adding more coverage of newfangled stuff that isn't on the current test would not please the intended audience. The one big change in format versus the sample test in this book is that the current test tells you how many answers to check on the more-than-one-choice multiple-choice questions. (Poke around some Java certification web sites.)

It covers both the Programmer and Developer exams, so it's thicker than books that only cover the former. I haven't taken the latter, so I don't know how on-target that part is, but it was an interesting read. (Certainly more interesting than the half of the book that focuses on the Programmer exam, but that reflects the nature of the two exams. The Developer exam is about writing real code, while the Programmer exam is about being a human compiler and language lawyer.) The Developer section does not give a complete solution, though, just hints. I understand why the Sun-employed author doesn't want to do that, but they could have invented a problem similar to but not identical to a real assignment and then solved it completely.

The Programmer exam is a multiple-choice test based largely on memorizing a bunch of exact rules about how the language works. Some of them are things you really need to know (e.g. what private and final mean), and some are just stupid memorization. (Do you remember the exact nested constructors of all those Writers and Readers and Streams in java.io, or do you just look them up in the handy online API help?)

My one criticism of the book is that, perhaps because the main author works for Sun and is directly involved with the certification exams, the book isn't blunt enough in places. If I wrote it, I would say things like "I know it's idiotic, but memorize every single method signature in Thread and which ones are deprecated" rather than just teaching what really matters about Threads, because the exam unfortunately focuses on both equally rather than on the important parts. People buy this book because they want to pass a test, not because they want to learn the language. They've already done that using other sources. So the book should teach more directly to the test. Maybe the non-Sun-affiliated books are better in this regard.

The book comes with a CD. It has a Java-based program that lets you take the chapter exercises and sample test (only one, unfortunately), which IMO beats taking it on paper. The text of the book is also available on the CD, in encrypted PDF, but unfortunately you have to run a Windows-only setup.exe to install it. Yes, a book about a portable language, stored in a portable document format, with a non-portable installer. Some people just don't get it.

By the way, I passed the Programmer test, but it was harder than expected. I would not have passed it cold. My advice is to buy a certification book (can't say which one since I only read this one), study, and make sure that you can pass a couple of sample exams by a comfortable margin before you drop money on the real thing. If you don't already know Java pretty well, I don't think you'll be able to pass this exam via just studying a couple of books (unless you have a photographic memory) -- write some real code first. Even if you do know Java, write some small test programs dealing with areas you might be weak in (threads, AWT if you've done primarily non-GUI work, collections if you mostly use arrays, inner classes, exceptions) to cement what you've learned.

This book is very focussed on the exam objectives. I passed the programmer exam with a score of 98%. I used a combination of this book along with Exam Cram. This book will not teach you how to program in Java. However it will immensely help you in clearing the SCJP exam & learn a few finer points about the language. If you truly want to master the fundamentals of the language you have to read the Java Language Specification too, which by the way, is available on-line on Sun's web-site.

The book has a few drawbacks though:

1)It has a lot of errors, and you have to check out the errata list.
2)It does not cover GridBagLayout which is on the exam.
3)Collections is briefly mentioned only for a couple of pages. You have to look elsewhere (Core Java vol 2 is a good source) to understand collections.
4)The exam engine available on the CD contains the same questions as the ones which are given at the end of the chapters, so it's a waste.

I studied for the Java Programmers Certification Exam using the first edition of the book. I'd already had a few years of experience using Java on and off, and this book was a very helpful reminder of some of the finer points of the Java language that I'd forgotten or managed to miss.

I've heard that some people use only this book to prepare for the exam, but beware that Sun has recently changed the exam to require background knowledge of programming, not just memorization of Java trivia. I'd recommend learning Java from one of the several excellent tutorial books available (The Java Programming Language is my suggestion), doing some actual Java programming, then reading this book just before taking the exam.

I'm disappointed to hear that this new edition has lots of typos, just like the previous edition did. The good news is that Sybex now has a copy of the errata on their website. When I reported errata in the first edition, the Sybex editors put the errors on their website and corrected later printings of the book. If you do find errors in the book, don't just whine about it; do everyone else a favor and e-mail the errors to Sybex!

I had just passed the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 1.4 Platform exam (with a score of 80%), and I want to help prospective test takers in finding the "right" Java study guide. I was bewildered by the number of books available, and I had to try many of them before I settled on the right one. Here are my short reviews for each of the major Java study guides:

"Sun Certified Programmer & Developer for Java 2 Study Guide" by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates (five stars): I felt this book was the best among all the Java study guides. Both the authors were responsible for the Java certification exam's development, and the practice questions are *very* similar to the actual exam. The authors also cover exactly what will be on the 1.4 exam, pointing out potential topics, questions, and pitfalls. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

"A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification" by Khalid Mughal and Rolf Rasmussen (four stars): This is a good choice if you plan on taking the 1.2 exam. The book also has a dual purpose of teaching Java and sometimes goes beyond the actual scope of the exam, but it is nonetheless excellent. However, as the title suggests, this isn't the book for you if you don't have any programming experience. Also, the book's practice questions are much, much harder than the actual exam.

"Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide (3rd Edition)" by Philip Heller and Simon Roberts (two stars): This was the most disappointing book of all. I don't know why so many people swear by it, but the book appeared to have been rushed into production. Many of the errors and typos have been updated in the book's second printing, but the book's coverage of topics is quite weak. Lastly, the practice questions were not only too easy, but they don't look very similar to how questions look on the real test. It's not a terrible book (many people appear to have passed the exam with just this book), but there are better options.

"Java 2 Exam Prep" by Bill Brodgen (three stars): This compact study guide isn't a bad choice for prospective test takers with a good Java foundation. It covers all the exam's topics succinctly, but as another reviewer noted, it should not be your primary study guide. I personally did not find the book particularly useful.

Lastly, sign up for Sun's ePractice practice exams. You'll get three sample tests, and they will help you prepare for the exam by showing you how the questions will look and what type of questions they will ask. I didn't like the idea of spending the extra money, but the practice exams definitely helped me prepare for the real thing.

OK, I promised myself that after my exam I would come back to Amazon and write a decent review of this book, "The complete Java Certification study guide". Please note, I only took the 310 -025 exam, (Sun Java Certified Programmer) so this review only refers to the first half of the book and not to the Developer section.

When I bought this book I had a rough idea of Java - I had dipped into a few books ("Java How to program" by Deitel and Deitel, and the "Java 2 Black book") and was familiar with the basic concepts of object oriented programming. This book served to show me exactly what areas of the fundamentals I was missing out on and also to explain some other areas that I had glossed over or just not really understood that well in the first place.

The explanations provided on concepts like, exception handling, threads and conversion/casting, are clear and to the point. I would recommend this book, not just as a certification guide but also as a learning tool, for when you have gone past the basics.

The CD Rom comes with a sample final exam simulation and also three mock exams, which I took about a week before the real thing.

I got, 76% in the sample final exam, 80%, 78, 86% in the three bonus exams.

I took the exam last week and am delighted to say that I got 79%!!

From this, I'd say that the exams in this book are a fair indication of what you may get in the real thing. However, it is necessary to point out that the questions in the real exam were a little harder and required nearly the 2 hours of my attention on the day, whereas for the sample exams, I was usually able to finish them in just over one hour.

One thing that I found odd is that while there are 59 questions in the real exam, each of the supplied exams here only gave 50 questions. It seems so strange to go to the trouble of supplying the jar files to provide a realistic applet simulation of the test program, and then to miss the point and ask 9 less questions than in the real thing.

This book was my main source of preparation for the SJCP exam, I also used Bill Brogden's Java Exam Cram towards the end of my studies. While Exam Cram was more concise, it placed different emphasis on different aspects of Java - I guess it's all down to how you interpret the exam objectives outlined by Sun.

One thing in particular that came up in the exam that was not covered in "The complete Java Certification study guide"was the join() method for threads. Exam Cram did cover it but apart from that, this book covered it all.

So unless you like the full picture, or just don't want to take any chances, focus on this book, as the Exam Cram may confuse you with its' different emphasis, which in my experience was for the most part, unnecessary.

To sum up, a great book that pins down the important areas for the SJCP and explains them with a clarity rarely seen in other books on Java. 5 stars.