Rating: 
Summary: The only resource you need to pass SCJP
Review: This is the only book I used to prepare for the certification and It helped me a lot. I scored 98% in the exam. Even though, I have reasonable experience in java, without this book, I don't think I would have even scored 70%. I found the two minute drill and exam watch sections pretty useful. Those were the stuff, I use to revise after I finished reading the first nine chapters. I also found that the actual exam questions were slightly easier than those found in the book. Thanks Kathy and Bert for this excellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Only Book You'll Need (for the Programmer test, anyway)
Review: I just got back from the testing center, passing with a 90%.So why four stars instead of five? Glad you asked. To be fair, I'll give the pros first, then the cons. Pros: 1. The practice questions are almost exactly like the questions you'll see on the exam. Be sure to download that extra exam!
2. Coverage was complete and well-explained. Cons: 1. Lots of errors in the text. Thankfully, the authors are maintaining a web site with errata.
2. The MasterExam didn't do a great job mimicing the behavior of the real test; you can't mark questions for later review, code snippets are always displayed in the same window with the answers (unlike the real test, which sometimes forces you to view an Exhibit), etc. That said, MasterExam _did_ help me prepare.
3. The book is, I feel, somewhat misleading in referring to itself as a guide for the Developer exam as well as the Programmer. This is _not_ one-stop shopping for both exams, whatever the cover might suggest. This book will definitely help you pass the Programmer exam. What higher praise can I give it? After all, that's why you're looking at this, right?
Rating:
Summary: It does the job, it prepares you for the exam.
Review: Before I read this book I scored about 75% on a mock exam. After reading it, I got 93% on my second mock exam and also 93% on the real test. As some other reviewers have mentioned the book has minor errors and the forced humor is quite annoying but I don't think these alone should take any star off. The book does what it claims and that's all that matters (at least to me). I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Good, complete guide
Review: I just passed the SCJP exam with 95%, and this was the book I used. The book does a good job of covering the essentials you need to know for the exam. Certainly, no topic is missing, the practice questions are right on, and the summaries are good. The only reason I can't give it five stars is that it could have had a bit more depth; this is perhaps the difference between getting 85% and 95% on the exam. However, with this book and a Java compiler I was able to answer all of my questions and score quite highly. Additionally, the LearnKey practice exam provided with the book is a good indicator of how you'll do on the exam, I scored the same on both the practice exam and the real thing, and even missed the same types of questions (threads and collections.) For what it's worth, JavaRanch.com is a good source of information, and the Whizlab mock exams are great, they make you think carefully about the Java language. Good luck.
Rating:
Summary: Good Preparation Guide (but not 100% Guarantee you MUST pass
Review: Many people recommended this book in Amazon[.com]. So I buy it and prepare for the exam within 4 days. I pass the exam but not getting a very high score. The mock exam in the book is a good preparation tool. I got 98% score in the mock exam from the book. But the real exam is different story. My advise: study the material on each chapter in detail especially those italic/exam watch section. For example (from the real exam), which of the following are the reserved keywords in Java language: 1. goto
2. strict
3. include
4. strictfp
5. synchronize Answer: 1, 4 (NO strict, include in Java; "synchronized" is the keyword NOT "synchronize") Another one is: What is valid key value for ArrayList ? ... (So you understand what I mean). This book is a good preparation tool but the understanding of the languange is essential. Another suggestion is (after studying all chapters, one - nine). Try to focus on three or four major areas (e.g. Declaration, Collections, Thread, Class/Subclass, ... etc).Make sure you understand completely on those focused areas. Since the real exam will get a average score on all testing areas. Even one or two areas you got pretty low marks (like me, got 33% on certain subject). But the overall score will average all testing areas. Now you know what I mean. Good luck for you. Wish U pass the exam soon.
Rating:
Summary: All you need for scjp
Review: I am not sure why some people have said this book is incomplete. It is all I used in terms of books (I also used some other online mock exams and a great forum site started by the book's author www.javaranch.com) With this book I aced the exam. It literally made the exam a piece of cake. And it is not surprising since Kathy Sierra helped create the exam. Don't waste your money on any other book.
Oh one flaw though is that the exams that come with the cd are NOT the proper exam format, but the questions are representative of the real ones.
Rating: 
Summary: A good reference book for exam
Review: I've just passed 310-035 exam with 88% score, not too low & not too high. I found this book is a must have reference for the exam although you shouldn't rely on this book only to pass the exam. If you want to score high, practice questions in the book definitely are not enough. Do reference to mock exam questions at www.jchq.net & cheat sheet (they call it study guide and only 310-025 version available) at www.itbraindumps.com. Especially questions in www.itbraindumps.com, I found over 10 of them appeared in the exam exactly or in slight variant form. Back to this book. I found the content about exception, assertion, inner classes are not enough for the exam so I referenced to mentioned site for more details. Anyway, what this book told me the most was this exam is very tricky (although I thought it not difficult) and you must paid attention to every detail (e.g. each line of code, each question sentence) to avoid careless mistake.
Rating:
Summary: Prepares you for the 1.4 upgrade exam
Review: I bought this book and it prepared me well for the upgrade
exam (310-036).
The material in the book got
me to "think like the exam" (e.g., looking for compilation errors,
tricky code sequences, etc.) The only missing part is that it doesn't tell you what parts of the book to study for just the upgrade.(...)
Rating:
Summary: Only book I used for SCJP 1.4
Review: This is a great book if you want to pass the SCJP 1.4 exam. It was the only book that I used, alongwith a couple of web sites - one maintained by the authors of this book (www.javaranch.com) and the other is www.javacertificate.com I credit this book (and my intellect, a little :-) with helping me pass the SCJP 1.4 exam with a score of 91%. I only got 5 questions wrong out of the 61.
Rating:
Summary: This Book SAVES you Time!
Review: The SJCP exam has a lot of questions about what is legal or illegal. This book tells you exactly that and it saves my time! Many experienced programmers still can be perplexed with tricky questions and the authors do a great job in dealing with those traps. Your search for the best SJCP preparation is over, get this book and start reading it everyday and you will PASS the exam with Flying Color like me! Thanks Kathy and Bert, I wonder why you didn't write this book 3 years ago?
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