Things to practice for Sun test CX310-065.

The CX310-065 (Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform, Standard Edition 6) checks your real ability as a programmer. In fact, it is totally scenario based rather than knowledge based. This test requires you to have a good understanding of the Java language and the capability to write code for well-defined design applications. For this purpose, along with studying books and taking various practice tests, you should also practice with Java. There will be less number of direct questions, and more questions of ‘find the output’ type. Drag-n-Drop questions will test your hold on your knowledge in writing code. A good number of questions will be based on new topics added to the language in J2SE 5 and J2SE 6 versions. These topics are as follows: generics, autoboxing/unboxing, covariant return, variable length arguments, static import, enums, Console class, NavigableSet, NavigableMap, and for-each loop. Although not many direct questions will be there in the test, practicing them will help clear your fundamentals. You should practice the following things with Java to be confident enough to score well in the test:

1. Write code that declares, constructs, and initializes arrays of any base type using any of the permitted forms both for declaration and for initialization.
2. Write code using the if and switch statements.
3. Write code using all forms of loops including labeled and unlabeled, using break and continue statements, simple and enhanced for loop.
4. Write code that makes proper use of exceptions and exception handling clauses (try, catch, finally).
5. Write code that makes proper use of assertions.
6. Write code that explicitly makes objects eligible for garbage collection.
7. Write code to invoke overridden or overloaded methods and parental or overloaded constructors.
8. Write code to define, instantiate, and start new threads using both java.lang.Thread and java.lang.Runnable.
9. Write code using synchronized wait, notify, and notifyAll to protect against concurrent access issues and to communicate between threads.
10. Write code that makes use of generic collections with/without generics, and with/without wildcards and find the difference between these approaches.
11. Write code that uses the NavigableSet and NavigableMap interfaces.
12. Write code to explore the benefits and limitations of autoboxing/unboxing.
13. Use for-each loop in your code. Make use of static import.
14. Write code using Scanner and find the benefits and limitations of a Scanner.
15. Write code using the serializable interface and explain the benefits and drawbacks of using this interface.
16. Write code that makes use of the capabilities of the java.io package for different file operations. The Console class has been added in the new Java version.