Customer Reviews

Java 2 Exam Cram (Exam: 310-025)

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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.

On December 15, 1999 I took the JAVA 2 Programmer Exam for the first time and passed with a score of 85. Although I've had exposure to simple OO concepts for about 10 years, I've only been involved with Java for a couple of months and preparing for the test seemed like a way to get a solid foundation in Java fundamentals.

The Java 2 "Exam Cram" really helped me to "bring together" the Java language and class library skills learned from other sources (most notably "The Java Programming Language" by Gosling et. al and the "The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide" by Roberts, et. al).

The "Exam Cram" really brings focus to the objectives that are required to pass the test. It also contains an EXCELLENT practice exam that gives the reader a very good idea of the methods the actual exam uses to ellicit your knowledge of Java. This is a key benefit, because one could be very fluent in certain aspects of Java and still not pass the real Exam because of the breadth of material involved.

I highly recommend this book as the "guiding resource" in the final days of your exam preparation.

Hello all! The 28:th of September 2000 I passed the SCJP2 with score 88% on first try. This book was a great help for me to do it. It is just the Exam "Cram" it promises to be. It is NOT a beginners book. You need this book for fine tuning after you have the basics from another e.g. the "Java 2 Certification Study Guide".

PROS:

- It stresses the "hooks" that other books doesn't mention. Just such "hooks" are in the real exam. (Example what to watch out for in a switch statement). The book pin-points what to whatch out for common errors/misunderstandings.

- The test questions in each chapter have good quality (not too easy).

- Contains useful practical tips about how the test works. Tactics etc.

- Very good Mock exam in the end. As the author suggests you should have at least 75% on the appended exam.

- This book succeeds to be packed with useful information instead of just words. In around 300 pages you will get a very good understanding what is required of you to make it.

- Thin/low weight.

CONS:

- Evem though I had version 5 of the book it stil has some basic typos not mentioned in the correction page (be sure to read the correction page).

- Some topics like Threads, AWT and IO are mentioned briefly. But as said before this is a "Cram" book. For IO, AWT and Threads:

--I suggest as additions the book "Java 2 Certification Study Guide" plus the "real" Java 2 documentation from Sun and lots of test programs.

My way:

(I wanted to learn for life not just for the test.)

- Read the excellent Java2 Certification Study Guide thoroughly. (A biginners guide).

- Meanwhile make HEAPS of simple Java programs trying out things the book tries to teach.

- Run your programs in debug mode to get a real feeling for it.

- Make your own notes.

- Read the book under review thoroughly!

- Dive into the "real" Java2 documentation on some topics: IO, System, Strings.

- To be comfortable I also read the javsoft trail for Collections.

- Take a bunch of Mock Exams. You find a nice selection on: http://www.javaranch.com/maha/_Mock_Exams/_mock_exams.html I scored 17 on the 19 toughest questions exam on Bill Brogdens home page (http://www.lanw.com/java/javacert/)

- I got several good tips in the www.sarga.com mock exams. The questions are good but the answeres have quiet a few errors.

- I also found some really good hints in Mock Exam 3 by Marcus Green http://www.jchq.net/mockexams/exam3.htm

All glory to ICHTYS! Hans Gyllensten Switzerland (hans_gyllensten@hotmail.com)

Like the title says it's an Exam Cram book, not a general Java tutorial, thus it should be used along with other material. It concentrates on the objectives and has no padding, just solid coverage of the Programmer Exam topics. It has no re-printing of the API, no coverage of the Developer Exam or the Architect Exam, just the Java Programmer Exam.

It has fewer errors than any other book on this topic, trust me, I can point out some fairly substantial errors in the other books, nothing significant in this. The actual exam does NOT expect you to understand native methods and thus the book does not cover this subject.

Because it is physically small you can carry it with you easily. This also means it would not make a good paperweight.

The mock questions in the book are probably a little harder than the real thing, so if you can answer them, you will probably pass the real exam.

Marcus

I passed the exam!! The exam exactly covered what is stated on the Sun web page under "Objectives". There is no question on Applets!! I would even say that all of the questions concerned a function specified on those pages. So read those pages carefully!

I used Bill Brodgen's Exam Cram JAVA 2 to prepare for the exam (388 pages). This book covers very well the theory. Any unnecessary bla-bla-bla. Perfect book. Though it was written for the old Java 2 exam, it is still 95% valid for the new exam (since the new exam has more code). I also coded a lot of examples, which was very useful. My score was 84%. This is mainly due to fact that I learned unnecessary staff outside the book and the Sun Objective page. I didn't concentrate on the basics. Besides, I have 10 years IT experience, 4 months extensive Java and 3 extensive weeks on the preparation (6 hours a day).

Toughest questions that none of the Test examples covered on the Web: - Do{ if() continue } while( );

- while( i++ <= j & i > --j )

- All sort of code samples with i++ and j-

- Two thread is started new thread( runnable ).start() + new thread( runnable ).start() (second will never get the chance to run).

- Which calls may cause a thread to stop (permanently or temporarily)

Other well covered areas in the exam: - Anonymous classes (static, public, private, extends, implements so on)

- Interfaces (constructors, members)

- Abstract classes (static, public, private, extends, implements so on)

- Threads (6 questions)

- File class (what method is used to see if a String is a directory)

- 2 questions on MouseEvents, 2 questions on Layout (that's it on awt)

- 4 questions on Streams&RWs (not too tricky)

I would say that the exam is not intended to trap people but asks very intelligent questions that nobody ever asked before in the exams available on the web and in the books ....

It is certainly a very good book for SCJP. It is concise, easy to read and very exam-oriented. It should be the first book to read.

But it is not complete, the explanation is often too short and not detailed enough (comparing to the two books I list below), especially for inner classes, LayoutManager, java IO, Thread, etc. If you only want to pass the exam, this book may be good enough; if you really want to have solid knowledge of java fundamental, please read following books as well:

A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification by Khalid Azim Mughal, Rolf Rasmussen

The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide by Simon Roberts, Philip Heller, Michael Ernest

The above two books contain more info, some info are good to know, but unnecessary for the exam. They concentrate less on the exam than this book.

Start from this book and than read the other two books, read this book again (or just do the Practical Questions at the end of each chapter and Sample Test at the end of the book) before the real exam. Read the Cram Sheet at the beginning of the book one hour before the exam. And you will pass.

Good luck!

A prep book is supposed to 'prepare' a student for the test. Unfortunately, this book doesn't do a very good job of it.

The initial chapters on syntax etc. are easy and reasonably good. But as soon as you get into heavier concepts, like inner classes, the book starts getting brief, abrupt, and even vague at times. I couldn't even return the book because I had opened the CD. Also the tests in this book are simplistic and don't illuminate concepts well.

So of course I went hunting for a good book, and the book that came through shining in all respects was 'A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification by Khalid Azim Mughal and Rolf Rasmussen'. I guarantee it, after you've checked out this book, Mr Brogden's book is just not worth it. Mughal-Rasmussen do an extremely good job of preparing you in the language. The test is just the end result. Also, the tests and solutions are all available online. So if for some strange reason you don't like the book, you can always return it and I would gladly sell you my copy of Mr Brogden's book, CD and all!

I give three stars to this book since its not a bad book inherently. It does the job it sets out to do. There just happens to be a better book out there.

To prepare for the SCJP exam, I started by programming and reading the Complete Java2 Certification Guide (by Heller) first, followed by using this book about just 10 days before the exam. These two books focus on topics differently and certainly make up for the weak part of each other. In fact, the Java2 Exam Cram offers some insight on Java in addition to the coverage of the SCJP exam itself. The sample questions are more difficult in this book while some questions on the real exam are trickier. If you can score 75-80 on the final exam in both books, you should be ready for the exam (passing score is 60). This book has good coverage on Thread, Event, Garbage collection, inner class, Flow control and Exception. Make sure you understand everything in the book so that you will feel very confident on the real exam day. Good luck.

I am a teacher in Java and am using this book to prepare my students for the Java Programmer certification. We have now spent 6 weeks with this book and have at least finnished with it. My students have only six weeks of Delphi experience since before and will try the certification in two weeks.

In my opinion this is a good book to see what topics you need to know for the exam, the questions after every chapter's are okay and the tests on the CD are excellent, almost exactly like the real exam, perhaps even a bit harder. Chapter 1 to 6 is a very good course of the language basics like datatypes, operators, constructors, classes and interfaces. I myself passed the certification with this book.

This is _not_ a good book for beginners. The code is ugly and sometimes confusing. Topics like Threads and some Collections are almost impossible to understand if you haven't used them before. Still, in use together with Suns documentation and tutorial this book works.

When I'll have my next course I'm still going to use this book, but I'm going to suplement it with another book with better examples and explanations for beginners.

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 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.