practice test take 1

I got about 72% on my first practice test for SCJP Java 1.4. Had about 44 minutes left over. Not bad, but can do better. The actual test will probably be more difficult so I'd like more than a 20% buffer.

update on Sanghera's SCJP Exam for J2SE 5

I've started rereading the book, and I definitely don't recommend it for preparing for the SCJP exam for J2SE 5.

There are so many errors! Significant errors, like what exception FileReader and FileWriter throw from their read/write methods - there's a table aggregating the I/O exceptions for various Stream classes and their read/write methods, and it's wrong. Kind of annoying. Keeps me sharp, I supposed, but the Sun book has to be better.

Also, the lack of formatting of code snippets is really annoying; it's hard to read.

I'll post a list of the errata later.

For now:
p.209
* "public FileReader(...) throws IOException"
should be "throws FileNotFoundException"

p.210
* "public FileWriter(...) throws IOException"
should be "throws FileNotFoundException"

p.214
* Table 8-6 FileReader, FileWriter exception thrown by Read/Write Methods should be IOException.

p.214
* It alternatively refers to "a string and two objects are written to the stream" and "the String and the Date Objects that were written to the file," when the first code snippet writes two Strings and one Object.

* bottom code snippet "(MyClassSerial)" should be "(MySerialClass)" on the 4th and 5th lines.

Java 5 SCJP take 2!

After being a little demoralized last year (what, I can't learn the new features in 4 weekends?), it's time to take up the gauntlet again and count down till June when I absolutely have to take the Java Certified Programmer Exam for Java 5. My voucher expires then, as I mistakenly bought the voucher before I was ready to pass the exam.

Do not buy the exam voucher until you finished 80% of your studying! Would be my suggestion in order to save you money.

Because it would be unhappiness to fail the exam.

Anyway, take 2 begins!

Wish me luck.

Current useful study guides:
* Java Tutorial for the Sun Certified Java Programmers Exam
* a practice exam a day (Java 5)
* last minute review guide

I'm thinking about buying this study guide:
http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/booksea.cgi?ISBN=0072253606&BN=OFF
But am balking a bit at the cost. Still, it's convenient.

There's also Marcus Green's book.

In the end, Sanghera's book left me more confused than anything. I guess I really need to practice and work out the new concepts; just reading a book won't do it all.

SCJP 5.0: Collections: the Map Interface

Some Map Interface methods:

void clear()

boolean containsKey(Object key)

boolean containsValue(Object value)

boolean equals(Object obj)

Object get(Object key)

int hashcode()

boolean isEmpty()

Object put(Object key, Object value)

void putAll (Map m)

Object remove(Object key)

int size()

Collection values()

For more detail see Sun's tutorial.

SCJP 5.0: Collections: the Collections Interfaces

Collection
^       ^
|       |
List   Set
        ^
        |
       SortedSet

Map
^
|
SortedMap

SCJP 5.0: Collections: the Collection Interface

Some methods in the Collection Interface:

boolean add(Object obj)
boolean addAll(Collection c)

void clear()

boolean contains(Object obj)
boolean containsAll(Collection c)

boolean isEmpty()

boolean equals(Object obj)

int hashcode()

boolean remove(Object obj)
boolean removeAll(Collection c)

Iterator iterator()

T[] toArray(T[] array)

For more detail see Sun's tutorial.