Java 2 Certification Training Guide

I passed my exam, but by the narrowest margin possible and with little help from this book.

The errors in the book were inexcusable, and cost me at least one question on the exam. It also didn't cover some topics as well as they should have been. There were only a couple of paragraphs on inner classes in the book, yet they appreared in about 10 of the 60 questions!

There must be other books on the markey that are better... or at least written by someone who has taken the exam before!

I just failed the exam by a small margin, and I know I missed at least 1 question because of errors in this book. This book doesn't even accurately list all the Java reserved words, which I discovered after reviewing Brogden's Exam Cram book this morning. For instance, Jaworski does not list "true" and "false" as reserved words, yet they apparently are (and were on my exam).

Jaworski, take your book off the market or publish a full errata sheet. You should refund the cost of my book.

1. I found many errors and typos in the book.

2. It failed to even explain simple concepts like hexadecimal and octal conversion.

3. It failed to adequately explain inner classes.

4. The test engine would not install on my NT machine.

5. Since the test engine failed to install, I used the engine available from the website. The questions seem to repeat.

6. I consistently scored in the high 80s and low 90s (percentage) on the practice exams, but failed the official certification. Hence, I find the test engine is useful but not realistic.

My summation: do not purchase this book. It helps, but it is not a one stop solution to your test preparation needs (despite its billing). I will retake the exam in 2-3 weeks, and I will find other preparation material.

To Jaworski: I suggest you spend more time revising your next version.

this book covers the programmer, architect and a little bit the developer exam. It helped me to prepare the Architect exam, but alone, it is NOT enough.

If you're already familiar with Java programming concepts for the Architect exam, then this is a good resource for some last minute study. If you haven't done any distributed Java programming or aren't familiar with the details of network programming, then look elsewhere. This book only highlights what you need to know, and fills in any holes in your knowledge that you might have, but you have to know what you're doing first. Still, it is well written and an excellent resource.