Passed Java SE 7 Programmer I (1Z0-803) with 95%

Hi all,

Today I answered 67 questions (out of 70) correctly on the exam and passed the OCAJP7 exam with 95% (should be 96% ).

The resources I used (although I have not really studied specifically for this exam):

being a professional java developer with 10 years of experience (it's the best training on the planet and you get paid for it )

being very active contributor in the OCAJP7 forum

OCA Java SE 7 Programmer I Certification Guide (by Mala Gupta) (*)

OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I & II Study Guide (by Kathy Sierra & Bert Bates) (*)

I needed 65 minutes to go through all questions a 1st time. In this first round I answered almost all of them and marked 6-7 questions for review. After this 1st round I reviewed all questions again. A good and wise decision: I changed the answer of 2-3 questions which I answered incorrectly the 1st time (e.g. didn't spot the "obvious" compiler error). In this second round I also answered all unanswered questions. After this second round I finished the exam with still 15-20 minutes on the clock.

I was happily surprised to see the exam software had a more modern look than when I took my last certification exam (4 years ago). Some facts about this software:

you can mark a question to review at the end

each question mentions the number of correct answers you need to select

when you try to select more answers than you should, you get an alert

when you are sure an answer could never be the correct one, you can eliminate this answer by right-clicking (on Windows machine). This definitely benefits the decision making process when you are in doubt

before you finish you can review all questions, review all incompleted questions and/or review all marked questions

after finish you don't get your score immediately anymore, you have to go Oracle's CertView (you get an email, within 30 minutes, when you can view your score)

Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel

(*) I read the book carefully when I was a technical reviewer.

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Congratulations Champion, Great Score!

Congratulations Roel

I was happily surprised to see the exam software had a more modern look than when I took my last certification exam

I agree with you on this one! I must say removing the drag-and-drop questions some years ago made passing the exam a little bit easier as well.

after finish you don't get your score immediately anymore, you have to go Oracle's CertView (you get an email, within 30 minutes, when you can view your score)

Yeah, and even if you know you did well it is pretty killing. You start doubting each and every question...

Thanks guys!

Frits Walraven wrote:

after finish you don't get your score immediately anymore, you have to go Oracle's CertView (you get an email, within 30 minutes, when you can view your score)

Yeah, and even if you know you did well it is pretty killing. You start doubting each and every question...

Certainly when the 1st question you get asks you to select two answers, but you can find just one... And in the end you have to select an answer with a blatant compiler error just because you couldn't find any other 2nd satisfactory answer

And in the end you have to select an answer with a blatant compiler error just because you couldn't find any other 2nd satisfactory answer

Imagine in the WSD exam I even had a question I couldn't read at all because of a formatting error giving weird characters....

Frits Walraven wrote:

And in the end you have to select an answer with a blatant compiler error just because you couldn't find any other 2nd satisfactory answer

Imagine in the WSD exam I even had a question I couldn't read at all because of a formatting error giving weird characters....

That's also a nice one And did you guess correctly?

I have no idea as I couldn't figure out in what result-category that ended up. The WSD exam is quite different from other exams...

Congratulations, Roel! I would not have expected anything less than 100% from you. What did you miss?
Also, I am curious as to why you took this exam. I thought you were already V6 certified so you could have directly gone for OCP 7 upgrade. No?

Hi Roel,

Hearty congratulations, As Paul said, I was surprised by the result too. How can you miss that 5%? I think the exam software was wrong somewhere, in calculation !!!

1>Did you get an alert saying you have to mark 2 answers, when there were 2 answers and you (by mistake) marked one?


With great respect,
Prathima

Paul Anilprem wrote:Congratulations, Roel! I would not have expected anything less than 100% from you. What did you miss?

Thanks! Yeah, that has always been my problem: people always have very high expectations, so I can only disappoint According to my score report I missed a question in these objectives:

Create and use for loops including the enhanced for loop

Create and use while loops

Declare and use an ArrayList

Assuming we could discuss the questions publicy, I have actually no idea about the questions I might have answered incorrectly. During SCJP6 I answered 1 question incorrectly, I knew immediately which one Now I have no clue at all! I can not even nominate one question.

Paul Anilprem wrote:Also, I am curious as to why you took this exam. I thought you were already V6 certified so you could have directly gone for OCP 7 upgrade. No?

Yes! I'm just one of those weird guys who like to study and take exams. I loved going to school and taking exams So I have 3 SCJP certifications, but never done an upgrade exam, always took the regular one. Another reason: as one of the moderators of the OCAJP7 forum and being one of the tech reviewers of 2 study guides for this exam, I took the exam to have some hands-on experience about this exam. Just to have an idea about the (difficulty of the) questions, to know if the study guides cover all topics and so on.

Prathima gaitonde wrote:Hearty congratulations, As Paul said, I was surprised by the result too. How can you miss that 5%? I think the exam software was wrong somewhere, in calculation !!!

Thanks! It's actually 4.3% not 5% This shows you should never underestimate the exam, it's really difficult. You have to answer 70 questions and have to be fully focused for 2 hours. Making 1 slip-up (or in my case 3 ) will happen very quick. Each question requires full concentration, otherwise you might miss a compiler error, evaluate a loop wrong,...

Prathima gaitonde wrote:1>Did you get an alert saying you have to mark 2 answers, when there were 2 answers and you (by mistake) marked one?

I didn't try that on the exam, but I think you don't get such an alert. But in the end, when you answer the last question, you get an overview page mentioning all marked and incomplete questions (both having a different symbol). And as I stated in my original post: you can review the incomplete questions seperately if you want.

Congratulations!

Congrats Roel

Yet I'm kinda curious why you take the 2 exam version to OCPJP7 instead of the upgrade?

K. Tsang wrote:Yet I'm kinda curious why you take the 2 exam version to OCPJP7 instead of the upgrade?

You are not the only one who's kinda curious A few posts above you'll find the answer.

Roel De Nijs wrote:

K. Tsang wrote:Yet I'm kinda curious why you take the 2 exam version to OCPJP7 instead of the upgrade?

You are not the only one who's kinda curious A few posts above you'll find the answer.

Right what would I have expected haha.

Roel De Nijs wrote: when you are sure an answer could never be the correct one, you can eliminate this answer by right-clicking (on Windows machine). This definitely benefits the decision making process when you are in doubt

I never tried that in the exam (right-clicking) ... maybe gonna try it coming Monday for my (WSD) exam.

I never tried that in the exam (right-clicking) ... maybe gonna try it coming Monday for my (WSD) exam.

WSD5 or WSD6? ..... (let me guess: 5)

Roel De Nijs wrote:Certainly when the 1st question you get asks you to select two answers, but you can find just one... And in the end you have to select an answer with a blatant compiler error just because you couldn't find any other 2nd satisfactory answer

I created a service request to the OCP team asking if it's allowed to discuss questions with them. Once they confirmed I could share question details with them, I provided as many details as I could remember about 2 exam questions: this one and another one which had a minor slip-up. The OCP Team informed me it would be investigated with the exam development team and would revert with an update at the earliest.

And today I got this reply from the OCP Team:

OCP Team wrote: Hi Roel,

Please note our exam development team has worked on your request and provided the below details :

Thank you for brining this issue to our attention. The items are correct but need some verbiage correction.

We are working on getting the exam updated by making these corrections.

We see that you have attempted both the items correctly.

For further queries we request you to please raise a new Support request at http://education.oracle.com/pls/eval-eddap-dcd/OU_SUPPORT_OCP.home?p_source=OCP .We will be happy to assist you.

Regards,
OCP Team

Frits Walraven wrote:Congratulations Roel

I agree with you on this one! I must say removing the drag-and-drop questions some years ago made passing the exam a little bit easier as well.

Agreed. Drag and drop was not good

Frits Walraven wrote:Congratulations Roel
Yeah, and even if you know you did well it is pretty killing. You start doubting each and every question...

Correct !! do not why Oracle did this. Giving cert score immediately after exam is best way.

Congrats Roel

Congratulations!
Your Java knowledge is extreme!