Monthly Archives: January 2008

How not to pass the SCJP exam

This last Friday I took the Sun Certified Java Programmer exam (Java 5 edition). I am going to talk about the experience, what I would have done differently and why it will end up mattering.

So just how hard is the SCJP? Instead of phrasing it in some vague way, I’m going to tell you what I did and how it all worked out for me. For starters, I studied for about 25 hours over the course of 10 days before my exam. I would say that having 18 months of Java experience did not help much. I also took 2 practice tests but they weren’t as helpful as I would’ve liked. However, I do still highly recommend reading the SCJP Study Guide by Sierra and Bates. It was fairly thorough and contained many helpful tips. Continue reading