Failed 1Z0-830 mock exam very bad. Looking for help.

Hello everyone.

I was a Java developer and after a huge career break (personal issues) I am about to be back to work.
I planned to take my first exam to be up-to-date on Java 21.
I studied around four hours a day with Jeanne & Scott's book but a bit in a rush (2 or 3 chapters a week) so I could take the exam asap.
After two months, even if I was not confident because I did not practice enough, I finally tried a mock exam and failed very bad.
I was about to keep trying mock exams again and again but instead I took time to analyze what I did wrong because my score was too low.
I realized how my preparation was not strong enough, compared to the deep knowledge required for the exam.
I've read the book too fast + did not practice enough + think too much as a developer but not enough as a compiler.
I also made a lot of mistakes because I did not notice some details (ex : missing braces, variable out of scope, etc)

People are blaming me because I am taking too long + I should have not failed that bad after that three months of preparation and that is disappointing.
I said I took responsability for my failure and I changed the way I work to fill the gap but to keep in mind that the exam is also hard and that is not just about knowing what a Record or a virtualthread is.
People replied that this is not ok and I should have passed the exam weeks ago.
I feel discouraged about what they said because I worked seriously but the wrong way.
I am going through the book again, working with exercices on Sybex/Wiley website, practicing and taking better notes.

Can you please give me some advice or feedback about that?
(Sorry for the bad english ^^)

Welcome to the Ranch

Sam J Fisher wrote:. . . People are blaming me because . . . People replied that this is not ok and I should have passed the exam weeks ago. . . .

People are talking a load of rubbish. Don't take any notice of what they are saying.
The idea of a mock exam is to find out how much you know and how much you don't before you spend lots of money on the real exam. You have found out, and (kudos to you ) you have been brave enough to tell us. Go back to the book and go through it slowly. Write lots of new code as you revise. Beware of sitting the exam asap. I am not certain but I think many people take much longer than two months to learn for the exam.

I agree with Campbell. If I wrote that exam I doubt I would pass, even though I've been programming Java for years.

I say this because, having seen many examples in this forum, I cannot answer many of them correctly. But I'm not concerned about that. If I want to know whether a particular piece of code will compile, for example, I don't need to know the particular section of the JLS which explains why or why not. I just put it into my IDE and it tells me right away whether it compiles, and if not why not. My Java knowledge is good enough for my environment.

But yes, I understand that you're looking to be in an environment which values all of the knowledge which I carelessly put aside. And yes, it takes a long time to acquire that knowledge reliably. So what Campbell just said, yes, take that to heart and don't despair.

Sorry to hear about your exam experience but don't lose heart because you are on the right track. As Campbell said, mock exams tell you where exactly you stand in terms of the expertise required to pass the real exam.

It doesn't matter whether you pass or fail the mock exam because irrespective of that you need to revisit the topics of the questions that you answered incorrectly. You can go through those topics from the book and incorporate some actual coding exercises. May be just write the same code presented in the questions and try its variations. If you are using an IDE, you can use a debugger and execute it step by step.

You haven't mentioned which mock exams are you using but go through its explanations and see if they make sense. Sometimes an explanation may not make sense if one is totally clueless about the topic and in that case one must go through that topic in detail from a book.

OCP 21 has a large number of topics and the thought of reading the same huge book again may not feel too exciting. If that is the case with you then I recommend using another book to get a fresh perspective on the topics and also to make things less boring.

All the best  

Hello everyone.
Thank you for your feedback.

The idea of a mock exam is to find out how much you know and how much you don't before you spend lots of money on the real exam

Indeed. I think I should have tried one at the beginning of my preparation to realize how hard the exam can be.

Beware of sitting the exam asap. I am not certain but I think many people take much longer than two months to learn for the exam

I agree but sadly, some pressure will come because I start a new job soon and passing the exam would be very helpful to have more credibility (and confidence) in interviews because I have a career gap in my resume.

You haven't mentioned which mock exams are you using but go through its explanations and see if they make sense.

I am using the Sybex's bank test on Wiley's website. In addition, I think I will buy Enthuware's mock exams as well.
I'll have to practice mock exams a lot because I make too many avoidable mistakes (ex: not notice missing braces, out-of-scope variables or var used with instance variable)  

Sam J Fisher wrote:. . . realize how hard the exam can be.

It is indeed by no means easy.

. . . some pressure will come because I start a new job soon and passing the exam would be very helpful to have more credibility (and confidence) in interviews . . .

Congratulations on your new job. That does however seem to make the second part of that sentence contradictory. If you have a new job, you aren't going to have to worry about interviews for a bit, and can take enough time to learn for the exam properly. And it is quite possible that after a year or two people won't notice your certification over your current work experience.

Sam J Fisher wrote:
Indeed. I think I should have tried one at the beginning of my preparation to realize how hard the exam can be.

It's better you didn't. There are only so many mock exams in existence and the predictive value of readiness only works the first time you see it.

That said, you can take the same mock exam many times to get better/faster. You just can't use a high score on it to mean you are ready, you need a new one for that. In fact, I do recommend taking the same mock exam many times to get faster. Because there is a lot of time pressure on the 830 exam!