About Java Certification Paths

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Oracle Certified Professional Java SE Programmer (formerly the Sun Certified Java Programmer):

     The Oracle Certified Professional Java SE Programmer (OCPJP) exam is the fundamental exam required to demonstrate solid understanding of Java and is a prerequisite to a number of the other Java certificates.

     The OCPJP 6 exam tests a candidate on knowledge of declarations, access control, object orientation, assignments, operators, flow control, assertions, string handling, I/O, parsing, formatting, generics, collections, inner classes, threads and the JDK tools.[1] The test is available in English, Japanese, Chinese, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish

Current Versions (As of October 2011)

OCPJP 5 Very similar in objective to the older SCJP 5.0 listed below

OCPJP 6 designated by Oracle as 1Z0-851

OCPJP 7 designated by Oracle as 1Z0-804
Previous versions

There have been a number of previous versions of the OCPJP.

SCJP 6.0 (designated by Sun as CX-310-065) is aimed at the JDK 6.0 release of Java. The SCJP 6 introduced new topics covering Console, NavigableSet, and NavigableMap.

SCJP 5.0 (designated by Sun as CX-310-055) was based on JDK 5. It introduced variable arguments, autoboxing, and generic types, and dropped the bit shifting topics from previous exams.

SCJP 1.4 (designated by Sun as CX-310-035) was based on JDK 1.4. Compared to the previous version of the exam, SCJP 1.2, it dropped questions on GUI topics and shifted the emphasis towards core language features.[4] SCJP 1.4 features 61 questions to be answered within 120 minutes. 32 questions or more (52%) need to be answered correctly in order to pass.[5]

SCJP 1.2 (designated by Sun as CX-310-025) was based on JDK 1.2, and was first live on 15 June 2000. The exam had 59 questions (both multiple choice and short answer) to be answered within two hours. The pass mark was 61 percent.[6] However, exam 310-025 has been withdrawn from the market; certified professionals can retain their certification and use the title, but this version is no longer being offered.