Jeanne’s experiences taking the 1Z0-815 exam

Update (11/05/2020): Read The 1Z0-819 Exam page to learn how you can easily our Java 11 Study Guides to prepare for Oracle’s 1Z0-819 Exam, as well as the 1Z0-817 Upgrade Exam.

I wasn’t as fast as Scott who took the exam two months ago (the day after it came out). I waited until I was done with “FIRST robotics season” and a vacation before thinking about taking the first half of the new Oracle Certified Professional: Java 11 Developer certification. I passed today with an 87%.I’ll be taking the second half in a number of months.

Jeanne vs Scott’s exam

A lot changed since Scott took the exam. I think he got a lot of experimental/unscored questions. The exam was still harder than the OCA 8. But it wasn’t insanely hard like he got. Key differences:

  • Scott had a lot of “pick 3 or 8” type questions. About 75% of the questions I got were pick one out of four or five choices. I got exactly 4 questions with seven choices. One was “pick 3 or 7” and three were “pick 1 of 7”. I got about 6 questions with 6 answers. Two were “pick 2 of 6” and the others were “pick 1 of 6”. I got about 12 “choose 2 or 5” questions.
  • I got 7 questions on modules. Which is what you’d expect statistically. Scott had a lot more but I think that was because the topic was new and Oracle was testing questions.

What is still harder

  • Overall, it is longer than the OCA 8. It took me 75 minutes to get through all the questions on the first pass. Then I spent 50 minutes reviewing (and memorizing). During that phase, I fixed one incorrect answer and changed a correct answer to an incorrect answer so it was a wash.
  • The scope is larger than the OCA 8 and the questions go deeper. This makes sense as this is a professional level exam.

What else was interesting?

  • The instructions say press control to cross out answers. This didn’t work. (I had this problem before so it might be my exam center.) – update: this worked on part 2, so it was probably just the mouse at my testing center
  • The exam results are supposed to be available within 30 minutes. I didn’t bring my phone to the exam center. When I got home, the email with the results was from “30” minutes ago. It took me a little over half an hour from when I ended the exam until I go home so he results were available fast!

How I studied

Even though I’m the author a study book, I find I still need to review. More so for part 2 of the exam, but it still helps for part 1 seeing the details.

  • Read our OCA 8 book
  • Re-read the basic parts of Manning’s Module System book. I was the tech development editor for this book and also helped with some of the finishing touches.
  • Do all questions in our OCA 8 book and K&B’s 8 book.
  • Do about half the questions in our Practice exam book for OCA 8 and the mock exam. (I ran out of time to do them all. This was mainly about practicing speed and confidence anyway. I do know the material.)
  • Did the official practice questions. (It would have been better if these were split between part 1 and part 2)

6 thoughts on “Jeanne’s experiences taking the 1Z0-815 exam

  1. Hello! =) Congrats on passing the exam!
    I am scheduled for OCA8 now and wanted to ask you for advice. What should I do now: take OCA8 + OCP8 (while I wait for the OCP11 guides to be published) and then upgrade to OCP11 OR take OCA8 and then both 11 exams? Both variants require to take three exams, the price is the same, so I’m a bit confused =(
    Thank you for you great job you are doing!

  2. @Aleksandrs: I recommend taking OCP8 at this time. I haven’t yet taken the OCP 11 so I don’t yet have an opinion. (I’ll be taking it this summer; focusing on part 1 of the exam for the book first!)

  3. @Jeanne Thank you! I actually dived into Oracle certification paths guide and it turned out it is possible to take OCA 8 and OCP 11 (two exams in total) to gain a full Pro title. Anyway, I’m going for 8, 8 and upgrade to 11 after maybe a year or two, since there are no work opportunities where Java 11 is used anyway, at least in my home country.
    Thank you for your answer!

  4. Hi, i have noticed that you books for learning OCA 11 are available on amazon, but you have not updated links to them on your page. Can you please do that, that would be great 🙂 cheers from Poland! 🙂

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