Objectives for SCJP (jdk1.4) Upgrade

Declarations and Access Control

1.1 Declare classes, nested classes, methods, instance variables, static variables and automatic (method local) variables making appropriate use of all permitted modifiers (such as public, final, static, abstract, etc.). State the significance of each of these modifiers both singly and in combination and state the effect of package relationships on declared items qualified by these modifiers.

1.2 Identify legal return types for any method given the declarations of all related methods in this or parent classes.

Flow Control, Assertions, and Exception Handling

2.1 Write code using if and switch statements and identify legal argument types for these statements.

2.2 Recognize the effect of an exception arising at a specified point in a code fragment. Note: The exception may be a runtime exception, a checked exception, or an error (the code may include try, catch, or finally clauses in any legitimate combination).

2.3 Write code that makes proper use of assertions, and distinguish appropriate from inappropriate uses of assertions.

2.4 Identify correct statements about the assertion mechanism.

Garbage Collection

3.1 Recognize the point in a piece of source code at which an object becomes eligible for garbage collection.

Language Fundamentals

4.1 Identify classes that correctly implement an interface where that interface is either java.lang.Runnable or a fully specified interface in the question.

4.2 State the effect of using a variable or array element of any kind when no explicit assignment has been made to it.

Operators and Assignments

5.1 Determine the result of applying any operator (including assignment operators and instance of) to operands of any type class scope or accessibility or any combination of these.

5.2 In an expression involving the operators &, |, &&, || and variables of known values state which operands are evaluated and the value of the expression.

5.3 Determine the effect upon objects and primitive values of passing variables into methods and performing assignments or other modifying operations in that method.

Overloading, Overriding, Runtime Type and Object Orientation

6.1 Write code to invoke overridden or overloaded methods and parental or overloaded constructors; and describe the effect of invoking these methods.

6.2 Write code to construct instances of any concrete class including normal top level classes and nested classes.

Threads

7.1 Recognize conditions that might prevent a thread from executing.

7.2 Write code using synchronized wait, notify and notifyAll to protect against concurrent access problems and to communicate between threads.

7.3 Define the interaction among threads and object locks when executing synchronized wait, notify or notifyAll.

The Collections Framework

8.1 Make appropriate selection of collection classes/interfaces to suit specified behavior requirements.

8.2 Distinguish between correct and incorrect implementations of hashcode methods.