Author Archives: Jeanne Boyarsky

OCA 8 Book: Online Material and Practice Exams now available

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If you’re one of the individuals who already purchased the e-book of our OCA 8 Study Guide, you might have noticed the online materials weren’t up yet. They went up today.

If you’ve ordered a printed book, we are getting close. Amazon.com is currently predicting delivery between January 27th and February 25th. We will post again on this blog as soon as we hear of an actual US delivery. First printed book delivery was reported on January 31st.

We are also doing a book promotion at CodeRanch next week. Ask us a question and be entered to win a copy of the book.

sybex

What do the online materials include?

  1. 3 mock/practice exams (60 questions each)
  2. 2 sets of flashcards
  3. A searchable glossary
  4. Electronic versions of the assessment test and end of chapter review questions from the book

How do I register for access?

Step 1 – buy the book. Once you have an electronic copy or printed copy of the book in hand, it is easy. When going to the Sybex test bank site, you are asked to supply/create an access code. Creating one is easy. You are asked for your name and email. You are also asked to answer a question that is easy if you have the book. (Like “what is the answer to question 3 in chapter 2” or “fill in the blank from the text of figure 2.4”). Then the access code is emailed to you. It came immediately when I tested it.

With the access code, you go back to the test bank site and create an account. You get to use your email as username and the password of your choice making it easy to remember. Then you are in!

How is the test engine?

This is a new test engine from Wiley. Older books came with a CD that had a Flash based system for questions. While I’m sure this is very nice for non-coding exams, the old engine only showed a handful of lines of code on screen which was bad for programming exams. I’m SO glad they improved this before our book came out.

The new test engine is beautiful. It shows roughly as much code as the real exam. It has a timer so you know how long you have taken. (It counts up instead of down like the real exam does, but you know how long the real exam gives you so this is fine. It’s actually a good thing since Oracle likes to change the length of time allowed for the exam.) The engine lets you bookmark questions for review; as does the real exam. The whole system is intuitive and nice to use.

Author advice

  1. The engine lets you choose how many questions you want in the practice exam. I recommend taking them with the 60 questions each that are indented. A lot of thought went into which questions appear together on a practice exam and you’ll get the most realistic experience.
  2. The flashcards allow you to choose sequential or random order. I recommend random order. Just like you’d shuffle your physical flashcards to make sure you remember best.

oracle released the OCA Java 8 Programmer I exam today

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Oracle released the OCA Java SE 8 Programmer I certification today. There are 77 questions and you get 2 hours to take the exam. The passing score is 65%. The topics have not changed since the beta.

You may already know that Scott and I wrote a study guide for this exam. The Kindle edition is already out. As of January 8th, the publisher was still working on posting the downloadable materials (3 mock exams, flashcards and glossary) that go with it. You can download those once they become available if you’ve bought the Kindle edition (or hard copy.) The hard copy is available for pre-order, but has not yet shipped.

We look forward to seeing your comment and questions in the OCAJP forum at CodeRanch. Also, you can see our book page for any errata or updates about the exam.

 

rain plans and flexibility at maker faire

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Maker Faire was interesting in that we got to use our contingency rain plan for the second time. My friend Norm and I coordinate the FIRST robotics tent at Maker Faire. The first time we used our rain plan was in 2013 where it poured overnight. See some pictures of all that water. Maker Faire was over 3 months ago. (I’ve been really busy writing my OCA book.)

2014-maker-faire

This time, I wasn’t expecting it to rain overnight so didn’t cover everything. It did rain.  I was advised afterwards to follow NWSnewyorkny on Twitter so as not to get caught by surprise again.

I got there early on Sunday morning to make sure things were in good shape and set up the tables. (We do put away flyers and the like.) I found puddles all over. Eek! I also found that the cloth bags containing many of the supplies were wet. As was the roll of paper towels I had left there. Eek! Eek!

The first thing I did was take out two plastic tablecloths. They were in sealed bags  since I hadn’t used them before. I put them on top of the tables so I could start unpacking without getting things wet.

I also learned that a moist paper well can still be used to mop up puddles of water. They don’t make things bone dry, but certainly help. Norm brought dry rags which helped. I also learned just how many dry surfaces there were – from chairs to plastic wrappers we didn’t need any more.

Lessons learned:

  1. Know the weather
  2. Cover up even if the slightest chance of rain
  3. Be creative in finding dry surfaces

The pictures is Norm, myself and two ribbons. We won an editors choice ribbon again. We also won a Best in Class (Education) ribbon for the first time. Exciting!