I wrote the OCPJP (Oracle Certified Professional Java Programmer) for Java 1.6 on July 3rd 2011
Its after a long time I have written a tough exam and thankfully cleared it :) .
There were 60 questions and 61% is the pass percentage. You have to get 37 questions right to clear.
All the questions were multiple choice, and there was no drag and drop questions.
Preparation needed
1) I took around 3 months for the preparing from Katherine Sierra's book.
2) It took a month more to revise and give practice exams (There is another book from the same author Katherine Sierra)
3) The practice exams in the book, had questions far more tougher than the actual exam. I had got scores of 31, 32, 39, 41 in the four practice exams out of 60 questions. The time it took also was slightly more than 3 hours for all exams.
4) After the first two practice exams, I found that, it makes lot of difference to know the number of correct answers for a given question. This was not the case in the practice exam. Hence, I noted the number of correct answers and then only attempted the remaining two practice exams (hence the score is higher)
5) Finally, I registered with a centre in Bangalore. Here also, there was initial confusion. Prometric is the old provider. The new test provider for Oracle is Pearson VUE. So search for Pearson VUE oracle test centres in your city. I registered after going to the centre, and the person at the test centre was helpful and after paying the exam fees, the person registered the test.
6) Pearson VUE offers some free practice tests, but its a limited period offer. I suggest that even if its not free, buy one and then practice, you get the feel of the exam, and it helps you in understanding the software.
Important links:
http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=41&p_exam_id=1Z0_851
Java SE 7 exams are also listed now in the below link, but I am not sure of the differences in Java 6 and 7.
http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=42
http://www.pearsonvue.com/
Benefits of this java certification:
I am not sure, what value this certification adds. I did it, so that my Java knowledge improves.
