Hello! I've been a lurker on this site for a while, mostly searching for tips on how to pass the
Java 11 certification!
I am a self taught developer in my thirties that started learning web development 2 years ago, so basically I wanted the certification to get my first job as a software developer!
My experience was similar to some experiences shared on this forum, but I thought I could add a few important tips.
1. I started learning Java from scratch from the great JetBrains Academy `Java Developer` course, this might be the best Java course online, it is interactive, you have to build actual projects to complete it, and it covers most of the topics of the certification, this course is long (took me almost 4 months to complete spending at least 6 hours day on it), and it is tough, I could not have completed it without the help of my brother who has been in the software development industry for almost two decades.
So I would say this is not the smartest way to get started, in hindsight I would have loved to get started with Jeanne Boyarsky's and Scott Selikoff's OCP Java 11 complete STUDY GUIDE because the progression is a little bit more intuitive I would say, and the explanations more detailed, so it is easier to understand the concepts from their book.
After studying the book at least once in depth, then the JetBrains course would have been a great way to review them and get practical experience programming.
2. Anyway, after I finished the JetBrains course, I spent some time taking Udemy courses in Spring and
Angular, then I decided to go for the Java certification in September of last year, I bought the exam to force myself to study for the next 6 months and take it at the end of the expiration time. I read the complete STUDY GUIDE the first time trying to understand everything, although there were several parts I did not understand fully. I did all the chapter review questions, and I failed most of them, especially the ones on the second part of the book, I was getting 30% or even less for some chapters. I read all the explanations to every answer found in the appendix.
3. I read the entire book
word for word a second time and a third time, by the third time I felt I understood everything.
4. Then I started reading a fourth time, but this time answering the questions of the companion book of practice tests. Basically I would read the chapters required for the section of the practice tests book, then I would answer the
test. I think at this point I was passing the tests related to the first half of the STUDY GUIDE, but I did poorly on the tests related to the second half of the book. In the end I realized that I needed to memorize pretty much everything in order to do well, as others have mentioned on these forums. I think I barely passed the 3 practice exams at the end of the book, but it took me forever to complete them, I went way over time, so I was not happy.
5. So I started reading the book from the beginning again, this time underlining all the important things and making mind maps of every chapter in order to memorize all the concepts. I also tried to memorize all of the tables, all of the methods, parameters, exceptions, keywords, classes, etc, pretty much everything... I finished the mind maps of the entire book, and felt stronger.
6. After this I went for the Enthuware practice exams as many have done on this forum. As many have commented I did well on the foundational tests, but when I took the first "real" practice test I failed miserably. I ran out of time and got a dismal score, less than 40%. Enthuware covers things that are not in the STUDY GUIDE, and at first one is not used to the fast pace required to answer the test in time, so I guess it is normal. I failed the first 7 tests, and then I passed the rest, with the exception of one. The score overall increased because you get used to the type of questions and the format, and you begin to read the questions faster and faster. You also need to read the in depth explanations and go back to the STUDY GUIDE to review topics you are not doing well on.
7. Then, to be more certain I decided to try the Whizlabs practice tests which are not as popular as Enthuware on these forums. There are only 4 tests, I passed the first two and felt relatively confident, but then I failed the last two... The very last one I got a terrible score, around 50%. These practice tests are really good too, the questions are similar to the ones on the actual exam, and the explanations are very detailed too.
8. The certification exam was around the corner and I did not felt ready after failing the Whizlabs tests, the day before the exam I got an email to check-in, and when I tried to check in I realized that there was the option to postpone it! I thought it might not work because the date expired basically the next day, but I tried and it worked, I postponed it 3 weeks.
9. I think at this point I re-read the COMPLETE GUIDE a fifth time, while reviewing the mind-maps. By the fifth time you read the entire book a lot faster because you skip everything you already know and focus on the parts you don't know. I also retook several of the review questions of several of the most difficult chapters of the second half of the book, and some of the practice tests from the companion book as well, the ones that kept giving me a hard time were IO and NIO2, concurrency, and modules, although the entire second half was always difficult...
10. Then I went back and began to retake all the Enthuware tests, then as the time of the actual exam approached I postponed it again... I finished all the Enthuware tests a second time, this time I passed them all.
11. Then I got an opportunity to do volunteer work at some company and didn't have as much time to study.
12. Then finally I was not allowed to postpone the test any longer, I believe it might have been a bug in the system that allowed me to postpone it almost 4 months after the expiration date, don't rely on it! I took a leave from my volunteering work the week before the exam and I read the book again from cover to cover, reviewed my mind maps, reviewed many of the Enthuware questions I had gotten wrong in the previous tests, reviewed the mind maps, and spent the weekend trying to relax and telling myself that I had done if not my best at least a great effort and that I would accept both the passing grade or the defeat.
13. Finally I got an 82%.... In the end everything helped, there were several questions that I wasn't not sure of the answer but with all the practice I think I developed an intuition to take educated guesses, there were questions that were similar to some of the questions I had studied, and there were questions that were too hard and I didn't bother, my plan had been to master the basics, get the easy and medium questions right and don't worry too much about the crazy security questions, or the concurrency questions that would take a senior engineer an hour to figure out.
For this I'm thankful to the authors of the STUDY GUIDE, I read it at least 10 times, in the end I just kept going back to it telling myself that if I knew everything in the book I would pass.
anyway just wanted to share my tips, thanks!!