Jxam v2.0 - Help

In the Sun Certified Java Programmer Exam (Java 2 platform), there are 59
questions, and you are allowed 2 hours to answer them.

The questions fall into several categories:

        -true of false
        -select one or more correct answers from a list
        -type in a line of code or string of keywords

Jxam does not implement the final entry in the above list.

Jxam is constructed based on my experience of the Java 2 Certified
Programmer exam. The purpose of Jxam is to test your knowledge of
Java (or at least the knowledge you need to pass!).

Jxam presents you with up to 59 questions and you have up to 2 hours to answer
them (the time is based on the number of questions you select - roughly 2 mins
per question). As a warning, the timer field turns red when there is less than
25% of your time remaining.

There are many more than 59 questions in the database, and when you start Jxam,
a random selection is made from the database (in this respect it differs from
the real exam, where the randomness is tamed down so that the questions come
from specific areas of the syllabus).

You can navigate between questions with the "Previous" and "Next" buttons
(the real exam also gives you a means to identify any unanswered
questions, and also to mark any questions you want to return to at a
later stage - maybe some day :-) ).

You can quit at any time by pressing "Quit". You can mark the exam at any time
by pressing "Mark". The Statistics feature is not something which is available
in the real exam, but may be useful in gauging your performance during the exam.

The results of the exam are displayed on a separate screen. Here, you can
view all correct and incorrect answers, and navigate throught all questions.
It is also possible to save the results into a text file for later review.



Any comments (good or bad) are welcome. This is free software. I've put some
late nights and weekends into it. Drop me an email and let me know what you
think.


Good Luck in the exam.

Eddie McNally
eddiemcnally@ireland.com
http://eddiemcnally.hypermart.net




The usual disclaimers apply.

Jxam is an exam simulator for the Sun Certified Java Programmer Exam. This piece
of software is supplied "as is", and is in no way sponsored by or related in
any way to Sun Microsystems.




Copyright 1999-2000 EMN

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public Licence, as published by the Free Software
Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public Licence for more details.





Putting questions together is more difficult than you think :-) I've compiled
and tested as many questions as possible and attempted to verify the answers.
If something looks wrong, check it out by looking at the Sun documentation or
some good books. In short, don't take my word for it.

While I've done my best to try and cover as much of the exam topics as
possible, I'm bound to have missed out on some areas of the syllabus. Again,
check with the Sun site for more information.



Rev History:

2.0  Finally moved away from MS Access to a text file for storing the
     questions (more portable, human-readable).
     Modified questions/answers following comments and feedback.
     Added additional questions.

1.81 Fixed the exam summary window (thanx JPL, again!).
     Added in additional questions.

1.8  JPL: added the "exam summary" window (the one which appears when you press
     the "Mark" button) to allow browsing exam results more conveniently.

     Fixed up some incorrect questions/answers.
     Added in additional questions.

1.7  Restructured the code and mod'ed class definitions
     Made corrections to questions and "stats" calcs (thanks Kevin)
     Made many corrections to questions - thanks for the effort Marcus G
     Added additional questions.

1.62 Added in additional questions. (7jun99)
     Restructured code, renamed classes for clarity.

1.61 Fixed some incorrect answers (thanks rob) - 2jun99

1.6 Added a summary feature (31may99)
    Fixed up some questions in the database which had incorrect answers (thanx Axelle)
    Modified child displays to be dialog boxes
    increased number of questions to 138

1.5 Modified the UI for readibility.
    Modified the reporting mechanism to display in a text window (rather
    than output to a file).
    Restructured the code to be better modularised.
    Fixed bug in Statistics feature (15may99)
    Increased number of questions to 134

1.4 Made Jxam a separate thread (14may99)
    Modified the results output to be directed to a text area, rather
    than a file.
    Increased number of questions to 118.

1.3 Added in additional questions (27apr99)
    Modified the Statistics feature to show # of correct answers

1.2 Corrected questions in database, added questions (24apr99)
    Fixed so that it can be run directly from a JAR

1.1 Corrected some questions in question database (15apr99)
    Added in additional questions

1.0 Original



Special thanks to Dr. John Hunt for allowing me to use some questions directly
(and indirectly) from his Mock Exam (see //www.aber.ac.uk/~jjh/Java).

Also deserving a special mention is JPL. In version 1.8, he added in a REALLY neat
browser for browsing through your exam results (much better than the simplistic
thing I'd put together!). Thanks JPL.

Also deserving a mention for "exceptional effort" is Geert, who sent in a load
of questions for jxam 2.0. Thanks Geert.

Thanks and appreciation, also, to the following for comments, suggestions,
encouragement, bug reports, etc. Without these people, Jxam wouldn't be as
complete and extensive as it is today...

Akshaya, Amitabh, Art, Artur, Axelle, Banu, Cathy, Dave, Dennis, Dick, Emil, Geert,
George, Gil, Jihong, Jim, JPL, Kevin, Lee, Lloyd, Marcus G, Marcus R, Norbert,
Patrik, Phill, Prasad, Rajib, Rob, Robert, Sanjay, Upendra, Yi Lin

Thanks also to the hundreds of people who've written to me with words of
encouragement and praise - it's very much appreciated, thanks.


General Comments on the code:
-----------------------------

1. Jxam limits you to 59 questions. It is a trivial exercise to modify the code
such that all questions are available to Jxam in a single session (simply
change the value of MAX_NUM_QUESTIONS in the Jxam class).

2. Jxam.java reads in all questions prior to making a random selection. It is
therefore a trivial matter to print out all these questions by simply doing
a toString() on the QuestionDatabase class.

3. The dbconvert class is a maintenance class, used for taking the question and answer
text file, and converting it to questions.db.




Wish list....
-------------

Add in a flag into the question object, so that already used questions can be excluded
from the next invocation of Jxam. Add in a button in Jxam UI to reset this flag. In effect,
each time Jxam is tun, the available database gets smaller as previously used questions
are excluded (thanks Upendra).

Add in some mechanism for ensuring that the answer text is completely visible. For example,
a "...more..." string at the botton of any answer test area, indicating that not all the
answer text has been displayed (thanks George).

Add in ability to "restart" the test (or take another test) without having to actually exit
Jxam (thanks Lloyd).


