At Last I finally passed my SCJP 5 exam

Yes that's right I'm finally in the Java certified club and I am now waiting for sun to send me my special name badge and instructions about the special certified handshake and secret signals

After months of reading and staring at that the SCJP book I have finally taken and passed the exam.

I got a rather ropey 66 percent but a pass is a pass is a pass.

The last few days before the exam were a real cram fest. I decided to take advantage of suns offer of a free retake if you registered before the 15th August (which they now extended). Having a free retake in your back pocket is a useful thing (especially as the exam cost £150) to have but the biggest motivation for me was to just get it over and done with, to brush off the King Kong sizedgorillaa once and for all.

Although I initially read the offer wrong and thought you had to take the exam before the 15th to get a free resit. I did read it again later but I thought, bugger it lets set the date, 10 days time , revise and do it.

I had beenpracticingg questions before the exam and Marcus Green's questions were going very well and I was getting between 60 and 90 percent. So I got to the last four days I tookFridayy off and revised solidly for 3 days and nights. The more I revised the more you think, Jesus there is so much to bloody study. My study processed was a case of slowly reducing my notes in size, until basically I had a list of gotcha's and important facts.

I had beenpracticingg with the questions in the book and some whizlabspracticee questions, until the morning before the exam I was getting at least half wrong and with the questions in the book I was getting about 40 percent. Althoughh some of the questions I got wrong were because I hadn't read the question properly, I was still quite concerned. All the otherpeopleI had read about were getting 70 and 80 percent before the exam.

My hopes of passing were based on this. I had read the SCJP book I was using about three times. I had learning loads more information during my fours days of cramming and in the real exam I would focus (like a lazer beam) and wouldn't make any silly mistakes.

As you can imagine I was slightly nervous and rated my chances as about 50/50. The first part of the exam went really well but I suddenly began torealizee my time was running out and the last half of the exam I was feeling the pressure and last 10 questions I was just racing through.

To make matters worse when I finished and was expecting my results the computer said printing error!!!

So even thought thetechnicianss said I had passed it wasn't until today and when I got my hands on my marks that I actually believe it.

I have to admit I don't feel that different but the good thing is at least now I don't have to keep reading about Java 5 features and I can read more interesting Java stuff.

So this will also be good news for people who read my blog because they can now expect some non Java 5 blog entries.