how to register for an exam using an oracle exam voucher

Up until August 2022, everyone used PearsonVUE to register for the exam. Now, you sign up for an exam differently if you are taking it in English. If you are taking it another language (ex: Chinese or Japanese), you still pay thru PearsonVUE (see blog post on sign up process.)

Don’t worry. The exam is still administered through PearsonVUE.

For English exam takers, buy your voucher

  1. Go to the page to buy an exam (ensure you plan to take the exam within 6 months; vouchers expire)
  2. Scroll down to the box for “Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Technology Exams”. Click “view details” to confirm your exam is still in the list
  3. Click “Add to cart”. It shows up as “Oracle Technology Exam Subscription” (it’s not a subscription though. You still get one attempt
  4. Sign in/pay

Sign up

Per Augusto Moro

After the payment was approved I received an email with order confirmation sent by Oracle with some instructions about how to activate the license key. 
The email contains a link to a page called Oracle Exam Attempt Administration Tool, [img]where I got an activation link to choose and schedule the exam. 
After the exam was beem scheduled, I received a schedule confirmation email with a link to manage my exam schedule and some instructions about the exam day. 

Jeanne’s 1Z0-829 experience

I passed the 1Z0-829 today. The exam page still says “coming soon” and Scott didn’t see the 829 in the list of choices when he looked last night. I think the exam “wasn’t quite ready” and they pulled it back. (or accidentally released it too early). I guess I got to take it because I was registered already. I saw 5-6 errata on the exam which I have reported to Oracle.

COVID logistics

When I took the 819, I was asked to remove my mask twice – once for an ID check and once for a photo. This time, those steps were combined, so I only had to remove my mask once.

I hadn’t been to this test center before. It was walking distance and well set up. I was a good distance from any other test takers. The only problem I had was that I was right next to the radiator. It would have been hot even without a mask on. With a mask, I was sweating.

Other logistics

I was given a marker and since sheet to write on. I was not given an eraser. I asked for a second sheet and was given it though. (I write a lot.) The man in front of me asked for a second marker because it had run out once. They were flexible.

Some time ago, you could right click answers to cross them out of consideration. This feature is not yet back.

Time management

My first pass of the exam took 65 minutes. I then spent a good while examining and memorizing the questions that I believe to have errata. I didn’t get a chance to go through and sanity check my answers because I was tracking errata. If I wasn’t a cert book author, I’d have focused on review and gotten a higher score.

Getting the score

I got my score right when I submitted. (68%). I didn’t get a printout. But I didn’t need one since I had seen the score. My details were available on certview as soon as I got home as well.

You might notice the passing score is also 68%. Why so low you ask? A few reasons

  • Some of the errata resulted in having to guess at the answer. For example a question saying to pick two correct answers had three correct answers. So i had to guess what the exam creators meant. (I have reported all of these to Oracle, there were a bunch)
  • I didn’t check my answers because I was dealing with the above.
  • A few questions were things I didn’t expect to be in scope. (They will be covered in the book.) This is one of the disadvantages of being a cert book author – you have to take the exam without a study guide.)

I felt way more confident about this exam than I did the 819 though. I like the question distribution better and I didn’t have a COVID lockdown cloud hanging over me.

Question Distribution

When taking an exam, you have to agree not to share what was on it. So no details about what was covered. Sharing the distribution of questions by objective is fair game though!

Note that this is approximate because of relying on memory. And also because some questions spanned objectives

Objective# Questions
Handing date, time, text, numeric and boolean valuesLots
Controlling Program FlowLots
Utilizing Java Object-Oriented ApproachLots
Handling Exceptions3-5
Working with Arrays and Collections4-6
Working with Streams and Lambda expressions4-6
Package and deploy Java code and use the Java Platform Module System4
Manage concurrent code execution4
Use Java I/O API4
Access databases using JDBC2
Implement Localization2

An important disclaimer about randomness

With only 50 questions, randomness is a bigger factor. This means you could easily not see questions on a topic. Or get more than someone else on another topic. Be careful as you read the experiences of people who have taken the exam. Just because they didn’t get a question on X doesn’t mean that you won’t! So you don’t get to skip studying topics.

how to sign up for an oracle java certification exam

Oracle changed the process for signing up for a test in person. (If you want to take an exam online from home, read up in carefully. For example, this blog post. It wasn’t immediately clear to me how to register for in person, so I wrote it down.

Note: starting Sept 2022, this process has changed for English exams. See blog post on new procedure.

Get to exam portal

  1. Go to https://certview.oracle.com
  2. Click “Log into Cert View”
  3. Enter username/password (sign up for an account if you don’t have one)
  4. Click “Manage Exam at Pearson | VUE” (note that you do not log into PearsonVUE at any time. – in the past, you did)

Select info

  1. Search for your exam. If you know the number (ex: “819”), enter that. Otherwise, you can search for “Java” to see all the choices
  2. Enter your address to search
  3. Choose up to three sites by checking the checkboxes
  4. Choose a time.
  5. Pay