Where/how to begin?

Let's see here, a little background is in order.
After programming in ASP classic for 15 years, I have moved on to Java.
I obviously know the basic of programming things like for, do and while loops are old hat.
I know some C# and I've played around in Python, Perl. I thought that I would learn Java and get certified in it.

A few weeks ago I picked up OCA: Oracle Certified Associate Java SE 8 Programmer I Study Guide: Exam 1Z0-808 by Jeanne Boyarsky and company.  I also picked up OCA Java SE 8 Programmer I Exam Guide (Exams 1Z0-808) CD-ROM – May 5 2017
by Kathy Sierra (Author), Bert Bates (Author)

The problem that I'm facing is that I read the books each a few times. I seem to not do that well on tests at the end of each chapter.  What can I do to learn Java and what am I missing... Given that people learn different ways what do your suggest? I'm able to put in a serious amount of time now being on vacation, but overall I've really only spend about a month learning Java.

Thanks for your help with this,
Pete

Pete Letkeman wrote:The problem that I'm facing is that I read the books each a few times. I seem to not do that well on tests at the end of each chapter.  What can I do to learn Java and what am I missing... Given that people learn different ways what do your suggest? I'm able to put in a serious amount of time now being on vacation, but overall I've really only spend about a month learning Java.

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 (and the OcpjpWallOfFame) you'll find plenty of (links to) experiences (some including time lines of their preparation) 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

Hope it helps!
Kind regards,
Roel

Sorry, yes you are correct searching does help and something that I should have done before posting. Right now I'm using a 7" tablet and this site is not exactly mobile friendly.

I know that everyone is different, so I guess my question should been something like this:

What do you think that I doing incorrectly. Currently have have the books that I referenced in the previous post but they don't appear to be helping me as much as I had hoped.  I do have my 808 exam scheduled for Aug 31 2017.

I will look into the posts that you have stated in your initial reply.

Pete Letkeman wrote:What do you think that I doing incorrectly. Currently have have the books that I referenced in the previous post but they don't appear to be helping me as much as I had hoped.  I do have my 808 exam scheduled for Aug 31 2017.

Probably the main problem with your preparation is the lack of coding practice! You mentioned you read these study guides a few times each. But learning a programming language is like driving a car: you don't learn how to drive a car by just reading a book (a few times), you have to get your hands dirty. During your preparation you should definitely write a boatload of small code snippets, preferably using your favourite text editor, javac (to compile your code) and java (to run your code). On the exam you need to assess code snippets, spot compiler errors, select the correct output,... (without an IDE). Each code snippet in the study guide should be the starting point to do plenty of experiments (change access modifier, change return type, add throws clause, mark an instance method static or final, and so on). And before you compile (and run) the program, you try to predict what will happen after you made the changes. Then you compile the program (and if it successfully compiles, run it as well) and see if your expectations/thoughts were correct.