Rahi Krishna

Jesse Silverman wrote:
I am overly obsessed with those things in any other context, but when trying to ensure you pass one of these exams, you can't possibly remember too many "dumb rules about whether doing some weird thing is legal and just a bad idea or illegal and won't compile" I would say.
I will second the "Don't give up!!" message, because it seems like if you found just a few "Exam Tricks" you were missing, or a few "Stupid Java Rules" you were unaware of and ignoring, you'd get more than enough points to pass next time.  There are skills that are needed that just don't get exercised when you write code "the way you always write it" and don't see the problems that you would actually see all the time if you did many code reviews at work, taught classes, or tried to answer questions in these forums.

Yeah.. that's exactly what I felt while practicing for the exam as well. There were ostensibly many seemingly redundant and too far "in-depth" rules that I never ever heard of, and surely didn't need while programming and was introduced to them in the mock tests.
Would you recommend other mock tests such as Enthuware so I could practice different sorts of questions hidden in the nooks and crannies of Java and its rules, or should I go through some books to improve my knowledge firsthand?

Thanks for the quick reply though Jesse. Really appreciate it.

Hey guys, I just wanted to first say that Coderanch is one of the more positive websites that I've looked at for assistance during my programming voyage, so I'm posting this on here seeking some help.
I've been programming since high school, but I haven't been very invested in hardcore coding and competitive programming, which I've started only recently on some websites like Codeforces and Leetcode, and I've been using Java (SE 8) as my main language to solve problems.
I'm gonna be starting my third year in college and my internship drives are coming up, so I thought I'd give the OCA exam to have some "proof" with me that I know a decent bit about Java and its basics.
I gave the exam today and ended up getting a frustrating 64%.

I practiced using Whizlabs mainly, and used to score around 75-85% on the mock tests there. I found that the OCA exam was slightly tougher (and lengthier!) than the questions they have to offer.
I never extensively "studied" Java from any books or reading/reference materials, so most of my knowledge comes from writing programs and solving problems myself and that's where I think I went wrong.
It feels like if I were to give the exam again soon, I'd pass, but I don't wanna risk the chance of me failing again.
I'm a bit bad at time management as well, and end up panicking if I'm not able to solve a question in the given slot of time (70 questions in 2:30 hours = ~2 min per question).

Could I get some advice on how to improve my score and knowledge in Java particularly for the exam?

Hey guys, I just wanted to first say that Coderanch is one of the more positive websites that I've looked at for assistance during my programming voyage, so I'm posting this on here seeking some help.
I've been programming since high school, but I haven't been very invested in hardcore coding and competitive programming, which I've started only recently on some websites like Codeforces and Leetcode, and I've been using Java (SE 8) as my main language to solve problems.
I'm gonna be starting my third year in college and my internship drives are coming up, so I thought I'd give the OCA exam to have some "proof" with me that I know a decent bit about Java and its basics.
I gave the exam today and ended up getting a frustrating 64%.

I practiced using Whizlabs mainly, and used to score around 75-85% on the mock tests there. I found that the OCA exam was slightly tougher (and lengthier!) than the questions they have to offer.
I never extensively "studied" Java from any books or reading/reference materials, so most of my knowledge comes from writing programs and solving problems myself and that's where I think I went wrong.
It feels like if I were to give the exam again soon, I'd pass, but I don't wanna risk the chance of me failing again.
I'm a bit bad at time management as well, and end up panicking if I'm not able to solve a question in the given slot of time (70 questions in 2:30 hours = ~2 min per question).

Could I get some advice on how to improve my score and knowledge in Java particularly for the exam?