Rating: 
Summary: Good book, but not ideal for exam preparation
Review: 'I read every single page of the first 15 chapters--everything covered in this book pertaining to the the Java 2 Programmer Exam--and I must say this really was a decent book, and actually may be good for some people. I also used another book as well, so I know what it looks like in comparison to relative to another.The information presented in the book is written with clarity and is organized based on the exam objectives. Notes and exam tips are written conveniently on the margins. The actual reading material isn't too overwhelming but is sufficient for knowledge one needs to pass the exam. If you're the type of person that cares only about knowledge required for the exam, this book has it. This book is a very good and perhaps great book for drilling concepts into your head if your not already very experienced with java. The questions, though they are not a good representation of the exam questions, are good for strengthening your understanding of the concepts. If you're the type of person who cannot pass an exam unless you take practice exams that have questions looking almost like the real exam, then this book is not for you. If you're not intimidated by questions that look new (in style only) and you have experience programming in any language, this may be enough. The only reason I do not give this book 4 or 5 stars is because it has some mistakes and I'm too lazy to go to the website for the corrections and it can have some better test questions. However, the guy that said he was programming in Java for 4 years and failed the exam probably doesn't know much Java or didn't read the book carefully or didn't understand what the book was saying. I didn't understand Inner Classes before reading this book and even though it has 5 pages on the subject, they tell you all you need to know. And the book has an exam tip stating "make sure that you understand how inner and anonymous classes are used. You'll see several exam questions that cover inner and annonymous classes." Apparently, the other guy from Chicago didn't pay much attention to the advice. In any case, I think it's worth reading two books for this exam. It's not an easy exam and you really need to know your material to pass. I used this book as welll as "The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide," which I thought was better since it was written by one of the authors of the actual Sun exam. However, I only used material I learned from both of these books and the questions in the books. I didn't take the exams and questions on CD-ROM (which I would also recommend to not-extremely-ready people who don't want to be surprised on exam day). I passed on my first shot with an 81 percent by just reading this book first and then reading the other. I think reading the material in it's entirety twice (each book once) is well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Just an overview
Review: I bought three books in preparation for the programmer and
developer exams. This book is my favorite. Even better,
it makes a good reference, as many subjects are explained
w/clarity. I frequently xerox selected pages and pass them
around to co-workers. As for the complaint about the architect exam... I am
currently preparing for this and the architect exam has
changed. The cover of this book clearly states 310-050
but I believe the current exam is 310-051. Since I haven't
taken this exam yet, I cannot comment on how valuable the
book is. But I did want to point out that Sun has moved on. I'm not sure what to say to the person who claims 4 years
of java development and still didn't pass the test. Must
not have been your day.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Exam Prep, IMO
Review: I bought three books in preparation for the programmer and
developer exams. This book is my favorite. Even better,
it makes a good reference, as many subjects are explained
w/clarity. I frequently xerox selected pages and pass them
around to co-workers. As for the complaint about the architect exam... I am
currently preparing for this and the architect exam has
changed. The cover of this book clearly states 310-050
but I believe the current exam is 310-051. Since I haven't
taken this exam yet, I cannot comment on how valuable the
book is. But I did want to point out that Sun has moved on. I'm not sure what to say to the person who claims 4 years
of java development and still didn't pass the test. Must
not have been your day.
Rating:
Summary: Good, But I Found a Better One and Recommend It.
Review: I didn't know which certification book to buy, so I bought three. One was this book, the other was Exam Cram, and the third was "A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification." I began using this book (Training Guide) as my primary reference book. I found that I could answer all of the review questions in this book, but I couldn't answer all of the questions in "Programmer's Guide" on the same subject! After chapter four, I discovered that "Programmer's Guide" was much more thorough and now I use *it* as my primary source. I use "Training Guide" as a supplement for testing, but knowing what I do now, I would *strongly* recommend "Programmer's Guide" as a thorough source to prepare for the exam. Respectfully, Wes Williams
Rating: 
Summary: Not the first book I would purchase to prepare for the exam
Review: In preparation for the Java 2 Programmer exam, I worked through this, and two other texts; "A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification" by Mughal and Rasmussen, and "Java 2 Exam Prep" by Bill Brogen. This book, in my opinion, was the weakest of the three. I would only recommend it as a supplemental source of practice questions once you have worked through another certification guide (or two). Although this book does cover all of the major areas of the exam (test# 310-025), it is missing quite a bit of the syntactical minutia that the exam is so notorious for containing. It is also my opinion that this book does not contain enough "debugging" type review questions - where you a presented with a block of code and asked what (if anything) is syntactically incorrect. This type of question wass very common on the version of the exam that I recently took. If you are preparing for the exam, I think your best bet is "A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification" by Mughal and Rasmussen. If you reach a point at which you can answer all of the review and practice questions in this book, you are probably more than prepared to take a shot at certification. I'd also like to recommend the three Marcus Green practice tests (available from javaranch.com). They are an excellent last-minute study tool and an accurate indicator of how well you will do on the actual exam. My actual score turned out to be a few points higher than my average score on these practice tests. Good Luck!!!
Rating:
Summary: Can be useful if supplemented with other resources...
Review: It is naive to think one educational resource is a sufficient precondition for passing the Sun Java2 programmer exam. The exam is not easy and the questions do require a thorough understanding of CoreJava2 and OOP. That being said, the book is a decent supplement to other online resoures such as Sun's Java tutorial and the core Java APIs. I would also investigate the web sites for the intro programming classes at top-tier universities in the US; I have discovered good information this way for Java and other issues of interest to software engineers. As other reviewers have pointed out the book has mistakes in the Q&A sections and Jaworski's web site fails to deliver on the book's promises of errata and additional test taking material [read: the questions on the cdrom and web site are the basically same as those in the book!]. I haven't taken the Developer and Architect exams yet, so my review must end here. Good luck with the exam(s) everyone!
Rating: 
Summary: This books is very bad, do not buy it.
Review: So far I have read 6 chapters of Part I. There is a typo or an outright mistake on nearly every page. Semantics of the language are described either incorrectly or in terms too vague to even be wrong. Whoever typeset the thing put "fi" and "fl" ligatures in the monospaced code typeface, and after about 100 pages forgot to indicate syntactic metavariables with italics. When I read others' reviews saying that the real exam questions are much harder than those in this book, and then I find that the ones in the book actually have incorrect answers given in some cases, I lose all faith in the rest. I guess you get what you pay for.
Rating:
Summary: Riddled with errors, typos, and omissions
Review: So far I have read 6 chapters of Part I. There is a typo or an outright mistake on nearly every page. Semantics of the language are described either incorrectly or in terms too vague to even be wrong. Whoever typeset the thing put "fi" and "fl" ligatures in the monospaced code typeface, and after about 100 pages forgot to indicate syntactic metavariables with italics. When I read others' reviews saying that the real exam questions are much harder than those in this book, and then I find that the ones in the book actually have incorrect answers given in some cases, I lose all faith in the rest. I guess you get what you pay for.
Rating:
Summary: Okay but not great
Review: This book is adequate as a supplement as you prepare for the exam , but it is not exceptional. There were a couple questionable topics, in particular, be cautious of the explanation it gives of polymorphism. The coverage of the Developer exam is very brief, but if you are buying the book only to pass the programmer exam, you should probably do fine. Personally, I found The Complete Java 2 Certificaion Study Guide to be clearer and more effective.
Rating:
Summary: This books is very bad, do not buy it.
Review: This book is atrocious. It is very expensive and is completely valueless for passing the exam. It provides no real information, rather it is an endless checklist of things that you need to know to pass the exam. Sun provides this for free in their test objectives list. The mock exam is exactly that, a mockery of an exam. The test engine barely works (I had to modify several files to get it to work) and the questions are poorly phrased and confusing. I would strongly advice anyone who wants to pass the test to save their money and purchase another book instead....
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