How to Study for the Java SE 7 Programmer I (1Z0-803) After Failing the exam?

Hi guys,

I failed the Java SE 7 Programmer I (1Z0-803) exam just a couple days ago with 60% score after studying for roughly a month. No biggie.

Now, I have decided to take the exam again, but I want to prepare myself better than last time. Problem is, I don't know whether I should re-read again the book that I studied with for the first time and do the same mock exams again, or study with something else? Which approach would you guys recommend? And more importantly, if you think I should go with something else, what other books/mock exams/etc should I choose?

BTW, for the first time, I studied with Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates' book and did the 6 mock exams from this book.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Kyle,
Good question.  I have never taken the Java SE 7 exam, but I have taken the Java SE 6, 1.4, and 1.1.  I passed all those, but did fail another certification I took the first time I tried.

Since you got pretty close, what might help you is that you should have gotten a report on where your strengths and weaknesses are.  Use that as a guide to whether you need another book or not.  Also, I am guessing you have significant experience with Java already.  However, there can still be areas that you rarely or never use.  If those correspond to the missed topics, I would go just practice writing little dummy programs in those areas.  If it were something like (it's been a few years, so I do not know what the objectives are now) Random Access files, then write code to open/seek/read/write, whatever, and learn what it does.  Likewise, if it is something about Generics & Erasure, practice a lot of that.  The exam is supposed to be about what we know, and we learn by doing.

Have fun, too.  I wrote code about a space port that was doing traffic control to prepare for one exam.  It was all imagination, but it was fun.

Good luck!

Kyle Walker wrote:I failed the Java SE 7 Programmer I (1Z0-803) exam just a couple days ago with 60% score after studying for roughly a month. No biggie.

Sorry to hear you have failed the OCAJP7 exam.

Kyle Walker wrote:Now, I have decided to take the exam again, but I want to prepare myself better than last time. Problem is, I don't know whether I should re-read again the book that I studied with for the first time and do the same mock exams again, or study with something else? Which approach would you guys recommend? And more importantly, if you think I should go with something else, what other books/mock exams/etc should I choose?

Could you provide more detailed information about your preparation? Do you only read the book? Do you write small code snippets? Do you use an IDE? What's your background? Do you have any Java experience before preparing for this certification? And so on.

In the OcajpFaq (besides other very useful information) and this thread you'll find an overview of all available (free and commercial) resources (study guides, mock exams, video courses,...) to thorougly prepare yourself for the certification exam. And on the OcajpWallOfFame you'll find plenty of (links to) experiences from other ranchers (including resources they have used). So it can be useful to determine which resources are useful (and which are not).

If you use the search function, you'll find plenty of topics with advice to prepare (and ace) the OCA exam. Here are a few:

Studying so hard just to fail(1z0-808)

Failing Java SE 8 Programmer I

Bad Experience with OCA 7 exams

Any tricks about how to manage the 120 min for so many question?

second failed OCAJP

Need some advice after failing the exam

Kyle Walker wrote:BTW, for the first time, I studied with Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates' book and did the 6 mock exams from this book.

You have used one of the best study guides available on the market, so I would still be using this one. You might benefit from buying another study guide and use it as a complementary resource. Since you have used the eBook version of Enthuware's simulator JA+ V7, the results of any retakes of these questions/exams might not be in line with your exam readiness (because you'll probably have answered some questions through memorization instead of actual knowledge).

Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel