Mark Nolan

Congratulations !!
Mark

Excellent score congratulations !!!
Mark

Congratulations that was an excellent score !!
Mark

Thanks everyone .. sorry I haven't replied sooner but I hjaven't been able to reach the site for a couple of days .. a tracert showed it stopping somewhere after about 15 hops :-)
Anyways it's back up now, thanks everyone
Mark

How about
"JavaRanch we Guarantee your certifiable"
.. ok maybe might get taken the wrong way

I'm curious as to whether people have been asked what percentage they got in the exam in an interview scenario.
I'm curious because Sun doesn't distinguish apart from a pass/fail. So do people ask what you got and I guess the other question is do people think they ought to ask that question ?
Mark

Congratulations !!!

Thanks everyone
As said above the pre test questions seem just to get an idea of the individuals background. However people have posted before now saying that they were not expecting them and it put them off, so I thought it was just worth mentioning again, so that hopefully people can fly through those and then get to grips with the real exam.
Mark

I "originally" started looking at getting certified about 2 or so years ago. I had some "slack" time so rummaged around, found all the information, read lots of news posts, found lots of great web sites. I sat some of the mock exams ... oh boy did those wake me up to where my weaknesses lay !!
Now all was going well, I had a couple of books, made a ream of notes and was plodding through it all at a healthy pace.. as you may be about to guess this is where my certification path got frozen into the ground A combination of lots of work coming in and having to do crazy hours there and the birth of my daughter ( ) soon took up that "slack" time of mine ..
* time passes to present day *
I was sitting at my desk just wondering what to do when it suddenly hit me !! I had the books, some notes and a renewed desire to get that first certification under my belt !! With a new rigour I set about making more notes re-reading the 2 books I have reading posts on here and taking mock tests. Then a golden piece of advice from a friend "just book the exam then you have no choice but to study". Knowing that I tend to procrastinate when doing things on my own time I thought this was a great idea. After ringing Sun and speaking to a nice lady who got me my voucher all sorted, I booked the date for the exam. It was at this point the reality hit me .. what had I done !! Was I crazy, would I be ready, what about the topics I was weak on .. EEEEEEEEK
Well to cut a growing story short I got stuck back into my revision ( between singing songs on the tweenies and dancing with my daughter ) and sat the exam.
Now to the bit that might .. or might not .. be of some use to other people .. when I took the test .. I had read quite a lot of information about actually taking the test, and I think that some of the most important points for me can be distilled into the following:
1) Try not to panic and keep calm, if your tense then you "might" make mistakes you wouldn't otherwise.
2) There's MORE than enough time to sit the exam. I actually did all the questions twice ( sometimes getting different answers sometimes not )
3) Read ALL the code in examples thoroughly, take your time and always check for the "obvious" ones, classes having the correct accessibility, overridden methods having the right signature and return type etc.
4) If you need to use the paper they give you to make notes on then do !!
5) Don't let the "pre test" questions that are there to determine your background in JAVA etc. put you off, they aren't part of the test so keep relaxed and just fill it in.
That's about it really. I think that the exam is mainly in the preparation, make sure before sitting the real thing that you do plenty of the mock exams.
After going through the questions twice I clicked the button to end the test.. then clicked the print button.. then wandered off to find out what had happened.. WOO HOO I passed I had a grin from ear to ear for the rest of the day I must admit.
Now all this has been a long road and I wanted to thank as many people as possible for the information the advice and the general atmosphere they have created.. so in no particular order:
Thanks "The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide" by Simon Roberts, et al
Thanks "Java 2 Exam Cram, Second Edition (Exam: 310-025)" by Bill Brogden
Thanks Marcus Green - Test exams and web site
Thanks JavaRanch - Everything from the rules roundup ( which I still play just to see those cows move ) to the forum groups where people are always helpful and ready to offer advice.
To anyone who I've missed THANK YOU FOR THE HELP as well
Mark

From keeping one beady eye on the market it is deffinatly a LOT tougher at the moment than it was around 12 months ago. Personally ( and this is based on no real facts ) I think it's going to be at least 6 months before any "real" improvement in the job market begins to make an impact.
It is deffinatly true that there are a lot of J2EE people out there, which makes it really difficult, however a lot of companies are still looking for people who have very strong "basic" JAVA knowledge, with a view of moving their projects onto / into J2EE technologies. Just because someone has experience of J2EE technologies doesn't necessarily make them a good programmer or a good candidate for a position so never loose heart there.
It "might" be worth talking to a couple of Agencies who are advertising JAVA jobs and asking them exactly what skills their client wants.
I think the advice from up above somewhere was also sound, the sooner you can get commercial experience the better, people always ask what you have done how you have used a language etc. It also helps to keep your skills on the ball.
As for which certification to do, I always think that's a more personal choice than anything. I tend to base my choices on what I want to get out of a course.
Anyways just thought I would add my tuppence worth
Mark

As I understand it the test centre provide you with paper and pen/pencils on which you can write things down work things out etc. during the exam, however this stays at the test centre once the exam is complete, no sneaking those sheets out
Mark

I have to say I agree entirely. When you go for the test you are nervous enough without added pressures and agrivations. One of the best pieces of advice I read about taking the test was to keep calm not to panic and stay relaxed .. which is pretty impossible when you are having to put up with such conditions. There's no way you should have had to put up with all that ( in my opinion anyways )
But .. just so that anyone reading this thread doesn't run away screaming and decide not to do the test, I have to say the centre I went to was excellent, clean quiet, the bathroom had soap , the people were helpfull. When I arrived they asked if I wanted to sit and revise a bit before sitting the exam, they explained about the paper, and there were multiple pens and pencils etc.
Hopefully Sun can remove, or sort out, any bad test centres so that everyone can have a better environment to take the test in.
Mark

When I was searching for mock exams to take I found the following link on javaranch:
Maha / Javaranch / Mock Exams
I found the information on this really usefull.
As for getting 50% on the mock exams I wouldn't worry too much, use them as a benchmark, and as a tool to highlight the areas where you are weakest. Also make notes about questions that act as "gotcha's".
With the real exam the questions are in the format of "Select the two .. etc." or such. So yes they tell you how many are correct.
Right that's my tuppence worth .. yes a whole tuppence !!
As for me and what mark I got .. I'm keeping stum
Mark

I agree 100% .. I think the answer to the original question is ..
There's no way to guarantee when the comparison x != y is run what values they hold due to the code not being thread safe.
( I think I might have shot off on a tangent earlier .. hehe sorry :roll: )

I agree that as the code stands it isn't threadsafe and you can't say with 100% surity what the output will actually be, as stated above it's going to be dependant on the operating system.
However I think the original question was based around why x != y returned false rather than true. I guess what you expect it to return depends on what your expecting x and y to be
Now I'm really not sure if I'm making sense