This document provides an overview of Oracle's Java certification exams OCAJP7 and OCPJP7. It discusses the benefits of getting certified such as getting noticed by recruiters and proving expertise. It describes the exam topics, structure, and registration process for both exams. The key points are: - OCAJP7 is for beginners and tests fundamental Java skills. OCPJP7 tests more advanced topics and requires OCAJP7 certification. - Exams contain around 90 multiple choice questions testing both conceptual and code-based problems. - The best preparation is practicing coding, reading documentation, and taking mock exams focused on weaker topics.

1. Introducing
OCAJP7 & OCPJP7 certifications
S G Ganesh
sgganesh@gmail.com
Tushar Sharma
tushar.sharma@ieee.org

2. Outline
Why get certified?
Oracle’s Java certifications
Getting familiar with exam questions
Preparing for the exam
Registering and taking the exam

3. Why get certified?

4. How do I get my first job?
Hundreds of thousands of freshers try for jobs every year
How do you get noticed by recruiters?
Why should the recruiter select you and not someone else?

5. How do I get a pay raise and promotion?
I work hard and do what I’m expected to do in my work
Still, every year my manager says he expected more!
Are you a key player? Have you gone extra
Are you a star as seen mile for the project and
by others (particularly exceeded expectations?
management?)
Do you have provable
expertise or skills that
are relevant for the job?

6. Differentiate yourself
Key to get a job, hike or promotion is to show you
deserve it
One of the ways to demonstrate that you have relevant skills
and knowledge is to get certified

7. Benefits of getting certified
To show you’ve some document proof that you’ve
relevant skills or knowledge
To show that you are different from others and
have some specialized skills or knowledge
Preparing and passing the exam gives you focus
on mastering the topic
Gives you confidence for getting a job or asking for
a promotion/raise

8. Oracle’s Java certifications

9. Why Oracle Java certification?
Java programmer certifications (SCJA/SCJP) were very
popular, and are now replaced with OCPJA/OCPJP7
certifications
Java continues to be very popular
The figure shows widely referred TIOBE (www.tiobe.com) language
popularity index (as on Sept ‘12)

10. Oracle’s certification path
Five levels of certifications
Associate, Professional, Master (for general technologies)
Expert and Specialist (for narrow domains or technologies)
Oracle
Certified Advanced levels of skills
Master and knowledge
Oracle
Certified
Professional Professional skills and technical
Oracle expertise to develop enterprise
Certified software
Associate
Fundamental skills, provides strong
foundations for further exams

11. Note on exam details
When creating this presentation in Sept 2012, OCPJP7 exam is in
Beta. The actual exam is scheduled to be released in November, and
these details may change in the actual exam. The exam details and
discussion here is based on information available as on Sept 2012

12. OCAJP 7 exam overview
Expertise level Beginner
Pre-requisite certification None
Exam Number 1Z0-803
Exam Name Java SE 7 Programmer I
Oracle Certified Associate, Java SE 7
Associated Certification
Programmer (OCAJP 7)
Exam duration 2 hrs 20 minutes (140 mins)
Number of questions 90 Questions
Pass percentage 77%
Cost Approx. USD 300
Exam release status Beta
Costs lesser in India –
Approx. Rs. 8500!

13. OCAJP 7 exam topics
Java Basics
Working With Java Data Types
This table shows
only top-level
Using Operators and Decision Constructs topics – for detailed
sub-topics, see
Creating and Using Arrays Oracle website
Using Loop Constructs
Working with Methods and Encapsulation
Working with Inheritance
Handling Exceptions

14. OCPJP 7 exam overview
Expertise level Intermediate
Pre-requisite certification OCAJP7
Exam Number 1Z0-804
Exam Name Java SE 7 Programmer II
Oracle Certified Professional, Java SE 7
Associated Certification
Programmer (OCPJP 7)
Exam duration 2 hrs 30 minutes (150 mins)
Number of questions 90 Questions
Pass percentage 65%
Cost Approx. USD 300
Exam release status Beta
Costs lesser in India –
Approx. Rs. 8500!

15. OCPJP 7 exam topics
Java Class Design
Advanced Class Design
Object-Oriented Design Principles This table shows
Generics and Collections only top-level
topics – for detailed
String Processing sub-topics, see
Exceptions and Assertions Oracle website
Java I/O Fundamentals
Java File I/O (NIO.2)
Building Database Applications with JDBC
Threads
Concurrency
Localization

16. Upgrade to OCPJP 7 exam overview
Expertise level Intermediate
Pre-requisite certification Any older OCPJP version or any version of SCJP
Exam Number 1Z0-805
Exam Name Upgrade to Java SE 7 Programmer
Oracle Certified Professional, Java SE 7
Associated Certification
Programmer (OCPJP 7)
Exam duration 2 hrs 30 minutes (150 mins)
Number of questions 90 Questions
Pass percentage 60%
Cost Approx. USD 300
Exam release status Beta
Costs lesser in India –
Approx. Rs. 8500!

17. Upgrade to OCPJP 7 exam topics
Language Enhancements
This table shows
Design Patterns only top-level
topics – for detailed
Java File I/O (NIO.2) sub-topics, see
Oracle website
Database Applications with JDBC
Concurrency
Localization

18. Getting familiar with exam questions

19. What kind of exam is it?
It’s a multiple-choice questions exam
The number of options would be based on the questions
Can be from 4 to 7 options (typically four options)
Many questions will have more than one answer to be
selected!
The question will clearly tell you how many options you need
to select

20. What does the questions test?
Questions intend to test your ability to solve
real-world problems
Most questions would be programming questions
Given a program or code segment, predict the behavior
Also few conceptual questions
These questions will test your knowledge and will not
have any programs in it. Examples:
.What are different kinds of drivers in JDBC
.What are different kinds of liveness problems with
threads

21. Example: Conceptual question
Which one of the following relationship describes the
OO design concept of "composition"?
a) is-a
b) is-a-kind-of
c) has-a
d) is-implemented-in-terms-of
e) composed-as
Answer: c) has-a
Composition is a design concept that refers to has-a relationship.

22. Tests your Java language knowledge
Questions will test your knowledge of language
features and their usage
Will test if you understand language features and
can apply them in practical situations
Most questions will be on nitty-gritty details or
corner cases, or unusual aspects of the language
Example:You don’t just need to understand the generics
feature in Java but also need to understand problems due
to type-erasure, mixing legacy containers with generic
containers, etc.

23. Sample question – 1

24. Sample question – 1 [options]
Which one of the following options best describes
the behavior of this program?
a) The program prints: in catch -> in finally -> after everything
b) The program prints: after throw -> in catch -> in finally -> after
everything
c) The program prints: in catch -> in finally -> after everything
d) The program prints: in catch -> after everything
e) The program prints: in catch -> in finally ->
f) When compiled, the program results in a compiler error in line
marked with comment in LINE A for divide-by-zero

25. Sample question – 1 [answer]
e) The program prints: in catch -> in finally ->
The statement println("after throw -> "); will never be executed
since the line marked with comment LINE A throws an exception.
The catch handles ArithmeticException, so println("in catch -> "); will
be executed.
Following that there is a return statement, so the function returns.
But before the function returns, the finally statement should be
called, and hence the statement println("in finally -> "); will get
executed.
So, the statement println("after everything"); will never get executed.

26. Tests your library knowledge and skills
Questions will test your knowledge of library
features and their usage
Will test if your familiarity with Java APIs and know
how to use them in practical situations
Most questions will be on nitty-gritty details or
corner cases, or unusual aspects of the library
Example:
What does the remove() method of Deque do? (Answer: It removes
the first element from the underlying deque instance).
What will happen if sleep() method is interrupted? (Answer: You'll get
an InterrputedException).

27. Example: API usage question

28. Example: API usage question [options]
Which one of the following options correctly describes
the behavior of this program?
a) This program will result in a compiler error in line marked with
comment LINE A
b) When executed, the program prints: Brazil Russia India China
c) When executed, the program prints: Brazil China India Russia
d) When executed, the program prints: Russia India China Brazil
e) When executed, the program throws a runtime exception
NullPointerException when executing the line marked with comment
LINE A
f) When executed, the program throws a runtime exception
InvalidComparatorException when executing the line marked with
comment LINE A

29. Example: API usage question [answer]
Answer: c) When executed, the program prints: Brazil
China India Russia
When null is passed as second argument to Arrays.sort()
method, it means that the default Comparable (i.e., natural
ordering for the elements) should be used.
The default Compartor results in sorting the elements in
ascending order.
The program does not result in a NullPointerException or any
other exceptions or a compiler error.

30. Does not test your memorizing skills!
The exam tests your understanding of the Java language
and library and your ability to apply it for problem solving
It does not test your memory skills
However, there are few topics where you may need to
remember key things; examples:
Letters used for creating custom date and time formats ("string
patterns") for use with SimpleDateFormat class
Characters used for forming pattern strings in regular expressions
Format specifiers and their meaning for use in format() method in
String and in printf()

31. Out-of-syllabus questions?
Exam questions need not be exactly from the exam objectives
Any topics related to the exam objectives can come in the
exam
For example, serialization and use of transient keyword is not
explicitly mentioned in the OCPJP exam topic
But this topic come in the actual exam because it is related to reading
and writing streams
.one of the streams is ObjectStreams and it relates to serialization!

32. Preparing for the exam

33. Code, code, code!
The best way to prepare for the exam is to write lots and
lots of small programs and learn from your mistakes!
If possible, do some small toy projects in the topics you’re new
or not familiar with. Examples:
For localization, you can localize your old programs
For JDBC, you can create a simple exam simulator program
For I/O fundamentals and NIO.2, you can implement simple DOS or
Unix commands using these Java APIs

34. Read, read, read!
By reading more, you’ll learn more about the language
features and the library.
Lots of resources in the internet. Two indispensable ones
are:
Oracle’s online Java tutorial: Read the Java tutorial available in the
Oracle website for free; you can access it at
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/; tutorial pages to
prepare for OCPJP7 are available in
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/extra/certification/javase-
7-programmer2.html
Java documentation. The Java API documentation is a rich mine
of information. This documentation is available in web (see
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/) as well as shipped as
part of the Java SDK.

35. Focus more on new topics
Take a close look at the exam objectives and grade
yourself from say 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest.
Prepare all the topics for which you've rated yourself as 8
or below.
Focus more on the topics in which you’ve rated yourself
8 or below.

36. Take mock-exams
Attempt mock exams
Take the exam as if it were the real exam:
Get a quite place where you can take the test without a break
Don’t refer to any books, ask others, or check web
…
Prepare based on the topics where you score very low
And then take another test, and so on …

37. Registering and taking the exam

38. How can I register for the exam?
You can register and pay at the Pearson VUE website
Recommended option
You can buy exam voucher from Oracle and then register
yourself in Pearson VUE website
You can register and pay in the Oracle Testing Center
(OTC)

39. That’s it – All the best!