Customer Reviews

Java 2 Certification Training Guide

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I used this book as my primary guide (two thorough readings of the programmer section) for the SCJP2 exam and made it after three months of studying (88%). Before buying this book my only exposure to java were a quick scan of an very old teach-yourselve Java in 21 days (covered the beta version of the JDK) to get an understanding of what Java is about. I believe my knowledge of C++ and tcl/tk (which I find similar to Java in a lot of ways) helped me a lot. The books material covers all that is essential to know for the exam, while keeping it short. This is a good book if you are an experienced Java/C++ programmer or student who wants to minimize reading time or costs and maximize internet/programming playing time. One word of caution - the book is a little short on some topics , but there are excellent web sites and mock exams on the net that helped me recognise these areas.

Unfortunately there are many typos and I find this unacceptable. I'd like to mention one additional typo not mentioned in the other reviews. On page 71 + is mistyped as =. On page 118 there is one sentence concerning the throws clause that I find difficult to understand. It might be a mistake, but I can be mistaken since English is not my first language.

Due to this I give the book only four instead of the five it deserves based on its content. I would have given it five since I believed the author made his objectives for the book clean from the beginning. I quote the following from the back cover "We know your study time is valuable ....". It is not a book for someone new to Java/C++/OOP and I believe the test engine gave one of the clearest projections of what the actual exam is like of all the mock exams I did (I didn't do any exams from other certification books or commercially available test engines - only freebies available on the internet).

Mr. Jaworski was defnitely around when the question bank for the SCJP2 exam was prepared.

It is naive to think one educational resource is a sufficient precondition for passing the Sun Java2 programmer exam. The exam is not easy and the questions do require a thorough understanding of CoreJava2 and OOP. That being said, the book is a decent supplement to other online resoures such as Sun's Java tutorial and the core Java APIs. I would also investigate the web sites for the intro programming classes at top-tier universities in the US; I have discovered good information this way for Java and other issues of interest to software engineers. As other reviewers have pointed out the book has mistakes in the Q&A sections and Jaworski's web site fails to deliver on the book's promises of errata and additional test taking material [read: the questions on the cdrom and web site are the basically same as those in the book!]. I haven't taken the Developer and Architect exams yet, so my review must end here. Good luck with the exam(s) everyone!

'I read every single page of the first 15 chapters--everything covered in this book pertaining to the the Java 2 Programmer Exam--and I must say this really was a decent book, and actually may be good for some people. I also used another book as well, so I know what it looks like in comparison to relative to another.

The information presented in the book is written with clarity and is organized based on the exam objectives. Notes and exam tips are written conveniently on the margins. The actual reading material isn't too overwhelming but is sufficient for knowledge one needs to pass the exam. If you're the type of person that cares only about knowledge required for the exam, this book has it. This book is a very good and perhaps great book for drilling concepts into your head if your not already very experienced with java. The questions, though they are not a good representation of the exam questions, are good for strengthening your understanding of the concepts.

If you're the type of person who cannot pass an exam unless you take practice exams that have questions looking almost like the real exam, then this book is not for you. If you're not intimidated by questions that look new (in style only) and you have experience programming in any language, this may be enough. The only reason I do not give this book 4 or 5 stars is because it has some mistakes and I'm too lazy to go to the website for the corrections and it can have some better test questions.

However, the guy that said he was programming in Java for 4 years and failed the exam probably doesn't know much Java or didn't read the book carefully or didn't understand what the book was saying. I didn't understand Inner Classes before reading this book and even though it has 5 pages on the subject, they tell you all you need to know. And the book has an exam tip stating "make sure that you understand how inner and anonymous classes are used. You'll see several exam questions that cover inner and annonymous classes." Apparently, the other guy from Chicago didn't pay much attention to the advice.

In any case, I think it's worth reading two books for this exam. It's not an easy exam and you really need to know your material to pass. I used this book as welll as "The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide," which I thought was better since it was written by one of the authors of the actual Sun exam. However, I only used material I learned from both of these books and the questions in the books. I didn't take the exams and questions on CD-ROM (which I would also recommend to not-extremely-ready people who don't want to be surprised on exam day). I passed on my first shot with an 81 percent by just reading this book first and then reading the other. I think reading the material in it's entirety twice (each book once) is well worth it.

This book would have benefitted from a more thorough technical review. It's one thing to have typographical errors in a how-to book, but in this type of book it wastes the reader's valuable time. I'm glad I kept my receipt--this one is going back to the shelf.

I have to agree with many of the reviewers. There are a lot of mistakes in this book and many of them are SERIOUSLY misleading. The support for this book is non-existant. There are no corrections posted on the website (as advertised) and there is no 'forum' for discussion (also advertised). My emails to the author have gone unanswered. Next time I'll read the reviews here first :(

This book sincerely tries to succinctly cover everything that might be asked on the Java programmer's exam, but it is so full of typos that I wasted more time trying to figure out what it meant to say than I spent profitably reviewing for the exam. What I found most disheartening were the occasional wrong answers to the sample test questions.

This is a shame. The author obviously knows A LOT about Java and tries his best to provide valuable insight into how to take (and pass) the exam.

The book was not badly written, but it was apparently neither edited nor proofread with any care.

Although it claims to cover all three Java exams, its treatment of the developer's exam is trivial, and, with the recent revamping of the architect's exam by Sun, its reasonably good coverage of this topic is now obsolete.

1. I found many errors and typos in the book.

2. It failed to even explain simple concepts like hexadecimal and octal conversion.

3. It failed to adequately explain inner classes.

4. The test engine would not install on my NT machine.

5. Since the test engine failed to install, I used the engine available from the website. The questions seem to repeat.

6. I consistently scored in the high 80s and low 90s (percentage) on the practice exams, but failed the official certification. Hence, I find the test engine is useful but not realistic.

My summation: do not purchase this book. It helps, but it is not a one stop solution to your test preparation needs (despite its billing). I will retake the exam in 2-3 weeks, and I will find other preparation material.

To Jaworski: I suggest you spend more time revising your next version.

The book is full of typos and mistakes that drive you crazy. The practice questions are not even close to real exam questions.

After studing this book for about three weeks, I took the Java Architect Certification exam and passed. This book, from my experience, does give good introductions to areas required by the exam. Of course, you cannot depend only on this book. My rating is only applicable to the architect portion of this book.

I will rate this book only for the java architect part. If you plan to use the book as your unique study guide, please forget about it ! Although it contains some usefull information, it misses important topics and the sample exam questions have little to do with the real exam. In fact, you will find this book great until you take the exam ! If I pass the exam it's more through jdc documentation than this book.