Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 Study Guide (Exam 310-025) (Certification Press S.) Amazon.com Review Anyone preparing for Sun's certification exam 310-025 will find Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 Study Guide of use. It provides a fast-paced tour of essential Java features and do-it-yourself sample test questions that will improve your chances for success on the exam. This fact-based approach highlights material that will be on the test. This means that it pays special attention to certain topics (for example, public-, protected-, and private-access rules), even though you may not normally need to think at this level of detail. Besides the basics, the text explains the details of class design and string processing particularly well. Exception handling and garbage collection in Java is also discussed, as well as class design as it pertains to the certification test. The book includes plenty of tricks and tips for what's covered on the test, along with what to watch out for in certain areas. A longer chapter on AWT for building basic user interfaces in Java rounds out this text. Every section provides challenging sample questions (usually about 20 for each chapter), which let you test your knowledge. An appendix contains more than 100 pages of answers and explanations for these self-test questions. (The companion CD-ROM features a computer-based test, similar in format to the actual certification exam.) If you have some Java experience, this book will quickly help ready you for official Java certification. Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 Study Guide definitely delivers the goods. --Richard Dragan Topics covered:    Test-preparation guide to the Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 exam 310-025 The format of the certification test Java language basics Data types, arrays, and strings Declarations and access control Operators Equality testing Flow control Exception handling (try, catch, and finally blocks) Checked and unchecked exceptions Java garbage collection  Mark-sweep algorithms Encapsulation and class design in Java Overloading and overriding methods Inner classes Threads and synchronization techniques Math, String, and StringBuffer classes Java collections The AWT user interface classes Event handling (events, sources, and listeners) Sample test questions and answers   From the Back Cover Don't Let the Real Test Be Your First Test! Prepare to pass the Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 exam - while gaining practical knowledge of Sun Microsystems technology for on-the-job success. Built on the proven training methodology of Global Knowledge, this complete study guide and CD-ROM package offers actual classroom techniques used by more than 200,0000 IT professionals each year. The Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 Study Guide covers the Topics you need to review for the exam, including how to: Individually select classes within a package using import statements; Write code using Java's three flavors of loops: while, do-while, and for; Use garbage collection to ensure that there is always enough memory in the heap to create a new object; Delay the reuse of memory occupied by an object using phantom references; Determine the differences between is a and has a class relationships; Create a thread by extending the thread class; Store a string of text characters in Java using a string variable; Use the three main types of classes within the java.awt package: components, containers, and layout managers.