IOANNIS MANOLOUDIS said:
Hi
I am taking the exam for the Sun Microsystems Java Certified Programmer
for
Java 1.4.2 on Monday
Can anybody speak about his/her experiences?
I am not asking for exam and question details.
Just about the overall experience and how helpful was it to get a job
later.
Ioannis
The exam questions are very language-lawyer like. You have to be able to
recall obscure details of the language specification and the covered bits of
the standard libraries, and then be able to apply the rules to code.
Pay attention to how you answer: the free-text questions want exact strings.
A single character off means that the entire question is marked "wrong." Of
course, the exam authors were careful not to write questions requiring a
free-form response that is subject to intrpretation, so this approach
actually works.
Pay attention to multiple choice questions. Some want "select one of the
following"; some want "select 0 to all of the following." Some questions
will ask you to select all of the true statements from a list. If you do not
find and mark all of the true statements, the entire question is marked
"wrong."
Take your time to be sure of your answer. I found ample time allowed to
double and even triple-check my work. If you are unsure of an answer, guess.
Wrong answers do not penalize you.
Now: I am certified (took the exam in 2001). The certification has never
been particularly helpful in landing a job. If I were looking at job
candidates, and the only significant difference betwen candidates were Sun
Certified Programmer for Java, I might put the certified candidate higher on
the list, but call both of them in for real interviews. This certification
has never achieved the kind of industry recognition that it needs to be
meaningful.
Part of that, I think, is that it tests recall of the language and library
specification rather than any real ability to produce good software.
-- Adam Maass
