Customer Reviews

SCJP Exam for J2SE 5: A Concise and Comprehensive Study Guide for The Sun Certified Java Programmer Exam

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have just passed the SCJP for J2SE 5 exam largely after preparing from this book. However, to be on the safe side it might be good idea to consider using more than one resource to prepare for this exam, because the exam is certainly not a walk in the park. I have read all the three SCJP for Java 5 study guides from cover to cover. So I would like to share my experience with these study guides in the context of both the exam and learning Java:

"SCJP Exam for J2SE 5" (this book) by Paul Sanghera.
I found this Study Guide the best among all, especially for the beginners. As another reviewer said the author has the unique approach of saying only what is necessary. He also has the skill of making difficult concepts easy to understand without compromising accuracy. The material is organized in such a manner that we also learn Java while preparing for the Exam. Because everything is explained from scratch, and there is no hopping from topic to topic, this book is especially suitable for the beginners. Here are some features in the book that I especially liked:

* All concepts are clearly defined and explained by using visuals where necessary. It makes this book self-contained.
*Tons of code examples explained in the book, which I downloaded from the book website and experimented with them to build confidence.
* The Exam Quick Prep appendix. I went through this just before the exam to refresh all the important points quickly.
* Exam's Eye View, Caution, and Notes throughout all chapters, which re-enforced important points.
* An appendix that provides useful information and analysis for those who are considering updating the J2SE 1.4 certification to J2SE 5.
If you are a beginner, this is your book. If you are an advanced Java programmer, this book will still take you through the exam without boring you.
Bottom line: I agree with another reviewer that books like these are hard to find.

"SCJP for Java 5" by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates.
This is a good book for advanced Java programmers, but rather over-hyped. If you are planning to buy two books to prepare for the SCJP exam, this is the second book I will recommend. However, this is NOT the book for the beginners. If you do not have intensive Java programming experience, do not use this book as your first book. If you want to use this book, first study Sanghera's book.

"Complete Java 2 Certification" by Phil Heller and Simon Roberts.
If you want to buy three SCJP for Java 5 study guides, this is the third one I will recommend. It does not do justice with some of the exam objectives. Overall exam coverage is not that great, but you will learn some Java topics.

This is a great SCJP certification book which can also be used to learn basic Java programming. Previously, I used Dr. Sanghera's SCBCD Exam Study Kit (from Manning) to pass my SCBCD exam, and liked that book very much. Now, I have read this book from cover to cover to upgrade my SCJP certification, and I would say: He did it again!
I myself have always wondered, if SCJP is the first real Java programming certification, then why people have to buy one book to learn Java programming and another book to pass the certification. Well, this book is the answer to this question: you don't have to. With this book, you can learn basics of Java programming while preparing for the exam. It presents the material in a logical learning sequence: like a training session or a classroom course. I love the author's style: same in both books. Each concept is explained where it appears for the first time, and there si a perfect flow. So it's not an exam cram, and there is no hopping from topic to topic. But yet each chapter and each section in a chapter is focussed on exam objectives.
Here are some features that I liked:
1. Unlike SCBCD exam, SCJP exam is code intensive. Recognizing this fact, the book presents complete runnable code examples discussed in all chapters. You can download these programs, and execute them, and experiment with them to get comfortable with the code.
2. The Exam Quick Prep appendix is very useful to recap all the important points for the last hour preparation before taking the exam.
3. There is no CD, but a complete practice exam with detailed answers is given as an Appendix.
4. I also like the appendix that provides the useful information and analysis for updating a previous SCJP certification to J2SE 5.

If you are an advanced programmer, of course you can still use the book because it is very focussed on the exam objectives. just ignore chapter 1.
I recommend this book to all Java programmers who either want to pass the SCJP exam, or learn basic Java programming, or both.

This book is pretty good for a beginner of Java. I usually have this 'fat book phobia' which makes me disinterested to read bulky books. So i generally look for something to teach me all the concepts in a crisp and concise way. This book does exactly that. Most of the Java 5 topics are clearly and nicely explained in simple and easy to understand terms. I know that it takes a lot of experience and skill to write books in such a way. But for anyone who wants to take a java certification and aim to score more than 90% I highly recommend this book PLUS the Kathy sierra's book for Java 5 certification to cover all the topics. Some topics like join() method in Threads, unary operators e.t.c are not covered or do not have enough/correct exam oriented information about.

I already have the SCJP certification for an older Java version. Now I would like to get certification for J2SE 5. So I bought this book. Like the SCBCD Exam Study Kit by the same author, this book explains all the concepts in a way that is easy to read and understand. I especially like the complete code examples that I'm experimenting with and the Exam's Eye View section that highlights the important concepts. The Exam Quick Prep Appendix is also cool. Will be helpful to skim through important points before the exam. Visuals, tables, notes, cautions are all in right amount and very helpful.

I especially recommend this book to those who are relatively new to Java programming. The material is precented in such a way so that even if you are a beginner, you will not have any problem in following the book. This is the only SCJP book that does not require any prior Java programming experience.
Exam or no exam, I recommend this book to all the Java programmers, especially the beginners and the intermediate.

This is an excellent book which, you should be using if you are writing the SCJP exam. The codewalk quicklet, exam's eye view and the review questions sections at the end of each chapter should help you remember what you learned in that chapter.
If I'd had this book back when I wrote the SCJP exam back in 2001, it would've made my life much easier.

This is an excellent book, and the only book that you can use to learn Java programming basics while preparing for the exam. I have always wondered why such a book did not exist. After all, who can determine better than Sun, a basic course in Java, and Sun does it by determining the SCJP exam objectives. This book is like a course in basic Java programming within the scope of the SCJP exam objectives. The author combines the two tasks (teaching basic Java programming and preparing you for the SCJP exam) very successfully without going beyond the scope of the exam objectives (Chapter 1 is the only extra addition). He does it by shuffling the exam objectives around and by using his classroom kind of presentation style. There is a perfect logical flow throughout the book: I love the way the material is presented and how all the concepts are clearly defined. It has removed many ambiguities, doubts, and confusions that I had about some concepts.

My favorite features:
* Complete code examples that are discussed in the book and available for download.
* Exam's Eye View section in each chapter to emphasize on important concepts discussed in the book.
* A complete practice exam with detailed answers and the code examples related to questions in the exam.
* Exam Quick Prep that you can use quickly go through just before the exam
* Analysis about the upgrade exam.

The beginners can find Appendix A handy that gives step by step demonstration on how to set up the Java 5 development environment on your machine. Also, there are enough visuals, bullet points, notes, and cautions to make the material stick.
I highly recommend this book.

This certification study-resource from Author: Paul Sanghera is a great tool for quickly getting up to speed in java with a view to taking the java programmer exam! As someone who recently succeeded at the SCJP 1.5 exam, i can vouch for this book. The following review is thus for those interested in preparing for the exam and not quite sure whether this book is the right tool for the job.

As a green-horn in Java, I found the following 2 exam-study resources very useful in learning how to program in java, and taking the Sun Certified Java Programmer for J2SE5 certification:
(Book 1.) SCJP Exam for J2SE 5. - (SCJP E5)
(Book 2.) SCJP Study Guide. - (SCJP SG)

Note: (due to review real-estate constraints, i shall limit this review to (Book 1) ie: [SCJP E5 (Sanghera)] -( the current book in question). you'll find a (Book 2) review on the customer review page for : SCJP SG

Like most new-comers to java, I wanted to get-up to speed in java rather quickly. Therefore, the (SCJP E5) book from Sanghera was chosen as the first reading-reference, as it seemed concise, compact & condensed. However, if i had to do things-over, and choose which one book to use in order to scale the SCJP 1.5 exam -(whilst learning the Java language as well), I'd pick the [SCJP SG] from Sierra & Bates.

Here's why...

About the (SCJP E5) book : this book is great for beginners. i found that it brought me up to speed quickly Re: java, as well as preparing for the exam. However, unless you have previous knowledge & experience coding in java, you might need another book for deeper clarity and more rigor regarding 5 SCJP1.5 exam-objective related areas, viz:
(1.) - Generics
(2.) - Threading
(3.) - I/O + Regular Expressions + Parsing
(4.) - Packages + Jar Files & Static Imports
(5.) - Exceptions

Note that: while the 5 exam-objectives above are quite well treated in the (SCJP E5) Sanghera book, I found that the (SCJP SG) Sierra & Bates book, provided the finer level of details that i believe a beginner might further require in order to have a better grasp Re: these 5 exam-objectives cited above (AND) (the questions in the real exam do require this further finesse with those details).

Otherwise, with the material in this book alone and without any hands-on experience, i reckon, a beginner might struggle a bit to pass the real exam by a comfortable margin.

and this is why i cant give the book alone all 5 points of credit. (I would however award 4.5 points!)

Upon completing the book, any access to good exam-revision practise material would be very useful in order to pass at the exam-level. while the (SCJP E5) book features useful questions and answers at the end of every chapter, as well as a further round of 73 questions in Appendix-D of the book; I believe people preparing for the exam would find it useful to seek out further resources for exam-question practise & revision purposes .

As review-space is short, i shall include below only 2 of the exam-revision resources which really helped prepare for the actual exam (for details Re: The other key resource used, u might want to refer to the customer review posting for (Book 1): SCJP SG

u might want to check these out:
(1.) "Tiger notes" on JavaRanch. look under the SCJP FAQ section for : [Mikalai Zaikin's SCJP Tiger notes ]. You can get a paperback copy of notes similar to these on Amazon if you prefer. lookup: Java 1.5 Tiger. However, i'd advise that you use it only as a prep-extra, just to cross-check certain topical-details you may need to clarify ie: (java: "Exceptions"). I wouldn't recommend it as your sole & unique study guide.[ kittybooboo's notes ] on JavaRanch are also quite good.

(2.) Turn to a SCJP Group for advice on the forums. They represent people in the same boat as those trying to prepare for and pass the SCJP exam. here are 2 such groups you can join.(Yahoogroups): Google: [" tech groups yahoo + scjp5" ]; (Another is): Google:[ "jchq + net" ] (-OR-) if you are preparing for the SCJP 1.4:( scjp 1.4 groups ) : Google:[ "uk groups yahoo + java_balk" ] ps: a good book for SCJP 1.4 is :A Programmer's Guide to Java Cert

(3:) refer to my customer review posting for (Book 1) ie: SCJP Study Guide

Schedule, Sit and Ace the exam in 2hrs:55mins, when you've finished with these various exam-practise questions and study-guides.
The exam is comprised of 72 questions of which several are fashioned as drag & drop coding-scenario questions. Although, the pass mark is 59%, I think most people -(myself included!), view the exam as tough, because of its code intensive nature. I think reading, tackling & spotting possible coding errors in code-samples 6-30 lines long is tough under such time-constrained exam conditions, Plus, No credit is given for partial answers. However, on the up-side, it is do-able with the appropriate revision preparation regime.

Curiously, in comparison, the previous SCJP exam ie: the SCJP 1.4 exam, is comprised of 61 questions , for which one has 2hrs to complete. Plus, the pass mark is 52%. That exam, is generally deemed to be an easier exam compared with the SCJP 1.5 exam; at least so attests certain in the user-community on JavaRanch.

for those wondering, i took the SCJP 1.5 exam on March 19th 2007. the passing-score achieved was: 98% ie: (71 out of 72 questions ). The pass-mark is 59%.

Good Luck!

next stops: SCBCD, SCWCD, SCEA, SCJWSD.

Cheers :-)

Passed the exam on the first try after primarily preparing from this book. Very well organized...I learned Java while preparing for the exam...The exam is of course not a walk in the park...However, this book helped...Concise, to the point, and perfect flow...There are actually much fewer typos in this book than in the other SCJP exam book that I have...I love the author's style...he has a way of making difficult concepts easy to understand, and yet stay accurate... Will get you through the exam...but also good to just learn Java.

Concise and beautiful. Books like these are hard to find. It covers the domain beautifully. The author has a unique approach of saying only what is necessary and saying it beautifully.

In the beginning of the year, Java equals "null" to me ( I know C/C++). I decided to learn the language and take the SCJP as a measure of my learning. I tried the Deitel book but didn't like it. Then I started to read the Kathy Sierra book, but they assume you know the basics (not my case). Due to the comments of one of the reviewers, I bought this book and liked it very much. I read it twice, tried all examples, fragments and tests and then went back to the Sierra book, which is more comprehensive (it is a much bigger book), has better explanations of generics and threads and has more tricky questions. I was able to pass the SCJP exam this month thanks to these two very good books.
I do not give 5 stars due to the presence of several typos and some other minor errors in the text. These errata are not yet in the book site, but as you are studying for the exam, you will spot then when you compile or cross-check with the SUN Java documentation. But these are a small nuisance considering the overall value of the book.