Learning Plan for your Java 11 Certification Exam
Well, it's been there in the back of my mind for a long time about attempting the Java Certification exam. After the COVID outburst subsided, I decided to give it a shot considering my Java background of around 3.5 years, I presumed it was gonna be a cakewalk. Boy, could I have been more wrong in my stance that time.
I planned on giving the Java 11 Certification exam shortly after it was released by Oracle in Oct 2020. Two of the main reasons behind attempting the version 11 exam rather than the Java 8 one is because-
- Java 11 OCJP 1Z0–819 offers just a single exam that one needs to take to attain the professional badge. While the older ones had 2 levels- Associate and Professional, wherein without the Associate certificate, registering for the Professional exam wasn’t permissible.
Hence, I was ecstatic when Oracle announced the new OCJP 1Z0–819 that required you to write just one exam to attain the Professional Certificate. I took this as a big relief but, alas, my excitement was short-lived. - Also, I wanted to update myself about the new features that version 11 brought with it as well as learn about some of the topics that weren’t my strong points.
To begin with, please do go through the exam format and topics on the Oracle University site. Most of the questions involve coding snippets followed by MCQ options of finding the correct output or choosing the correct code from 3 or 4 blocks of code.
It will have a total of 50 questions to be completed in 90 minutes with a pass percentage of 68 and trust me, you will be scrambling for time unless you are well prepared.
The exam versions released before- OCAP 1Z0–815 and OCJP 1Z0–816 had 80 questions each to be completed in 180 minutes with a pass percentage of 63. So the questions for the new exam, OCJP 1Z0–819, were bought down from 80 to 50 but the difficulty level was higher as the options were quite tricky.
The twisted details in the code can be easily missed by the average programmer since frankly, our IDEs do half the work indicating any compile-time errors as well as autocompleting all our method calls, objects, and whatnot.
I observed that there were more questions from certain entry-level topics like Interfaces, Lambdas, and Streams. So strengthening your understanding of these subjects is paramount. While the complex ones like Multithreading and Files had only one question each. So it will be sufficient if you just know the basics.
Moreover, you have an option of giving this exam online which is what I did because of pandemic restrictions. The process was exceptionally smooth and not as fraught as I thought it would be.
So first and foremost, before you start registering or even preparing for the exam, take a quick mock test online to know where you stand. You will get to know how many hours you will have to dedicate to your learning.
With my confidence up high, I commenced preparing from Feb 2021. I started flicking through some basic Java books and online sites for some quick touch-ups initially. But I was going at such an awfully slow pace, taking my own damn sweet time to go through each and every word that it dawned on me eventually that even if 2021 ends, I wouldn’t be able to write the exam.
Most of us tend to do that right, to extend our timelines and glean over every minuscule thing that we end up stretching ourselves far and out. Hence, to really push me out there, I registered for the exam roughly 2 months from the date, i.e. around April 2021, giving myself ample time to go through the nitty gritties and corner cases of each topic. With some determination, perseverance as well as some diligent note-taking, things were on track.
ASSOCIATE LEVEL TOPICS
My duration- 1.5 months (~1 hour daily)
Even though we developers know the Java basics such as Primitives, String, Arrays, Classes, Inheritance, Interfaces, and Lambdas, after taking a couple of mock tests on the Associate level topics, I realized that there were some in-depth details that I wasn’t familiar with.
So I took up a course in Udemy by Tim Buchalka which is for experienced Java programmers (who think they know everything about Java but actually don’t. Like me, tehehe).
Assuming that we understand all the basics, he takes us through the corner cases and issues that we tend to miss out on as programmers since we don’t really apply them much in real-life scenarios.
All this with examples and sample code which you can try out on your own machine. Also, point to be noted, note-taking is very important (such an oxymoron, wow 😜). They might come in handy just a few days before the exam when you don’t have the time to revisit these videos.
The questions posed from the Associate Level topics were quite twisted as well so make sure you understand some of the minuscule details especially from strings, interfaces, streams, and lambda expressions
PROFESSIONAL LEVEL TOPICS
My duration- 1 month (~1.5 hours daily)
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For the higher-level topics, I will recommend that you first go through the Oracle provided Training videos which are made available once you register for the exam. It covers the basics of advanced concepts (multithreading, files, localization) whose fundamentals and inner workings I wasn’t exactly sure of. Do practice a little coding after watching these introductory videos.
They can be just small programs to test your understanding of that topic which makes us realize the usage and helps in incarnating the concept into our brain. The questions that I received from the professional level topics were direct ones.
As long as you are up to mark with the basic idea, the output can be figured out easily. No twists and turns here. There was 1 question each from multi-threading, localization, annotations, and files. While there were two questions on modules.
POINTERS
Three things to further amp up your game-
- Start going through the Oracle docs as well as Baeldung and Stack Overflow (my forever partner) regularly (once a week) to learn more about unfamiliar topics.
- Revisit your notes once a week to internalize all those concepts you had learned from the beginning.
- The most important one in fact, because without this I think I would have absofruitly flunked miserably, are attempting mock questions and tests. These mock exams gave me an idea of how the questions will be structured. What kind of questions I can expect. Which form, shape, and color they can come in 😋. How twisted and evil they could be (buhaha👿) because it can be an edge-case scenario that we have missed out on. How stealth and cunning they could be (tehehe 😈) cause you might have skipped through some code only to realize that piece of code was the one creating a major issue which you completely missed because of your dumbassery 🙆. These mock exams greatly helped me manage my time as well, turning me from an innocent yet over-smart programmer to a cautious, focused, and attentive one.
The mock exam that I went through had topic-wise questions rather than the exam-specific format-
- Mock Exam for Associate Level Topics by Udayan Khattry
- Mock Exam for Professional Level Topics by Udayan Khattry
These mock tests are prepared by Udayan Khattry which I attempted once. It offers beautiful explanations of the answers after each attempt. They are comparatively of the same level as the actual exam.
My score depending on how comfortable I was with each topic ranged from as low as 30% to as high as 80%. So I knew which topics I had to concentrate on from looking at my results.
After each mock exam, go through the result and analyze where you went wrong. If it's some concept that you have missed, then make sure to read up about it and try the same in your IDE. If time permits, I will recommend that you come back to these mock exams after a gap of 2 weeks and try them out a second time.
Make sure that you don’t keep these mock tests for the last minute. Whenever I used to get too overwhelmed or overloaded from going through the videos and books, I would take a break and get started on one of the mock exams of associate-level topics and analyze them after the results to know where I went wrong.
Without these mock tests, my passing this exam would have been very slim indeed. Last of all as the exam day approaches closer, come back to your notes and sample programs to just get an idea of the commands and syntaxes.
As I continued preparing for the exam assiduously, I started probing into some of the advanced topics such as wild card entries, multithreading, and localizations. Also got to learn some of the infinitesimally small details of Java 8 features- streams and interfaces.
Glad that I had decided to give this a try even though I had certain qualms and worries. If nothing else, it did level up my knowledge and internal workings of this ubiquitous, omnipresent language- JAVA!!! So what are you folks waiting for? Get ahead with your Java skills and Good Luck! 😄
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