EPractize Labs Training Lab (Software Book) Review
I was really impressed with EPractize Labs Training Lab simulator while I was preparing for my OCPJP 7. So in this article I have written a short review about Training Lab Simulator. I hope that it will help the people who are searching for the best self study guide for their Java Certification Exam Preparation.
You can read my OCPJP 7 Certification success story.
What is EPractize Labs Training Lab?
Training Lab is the study material offered by EPractize labs. EPractize Labs is a software company, nearly 10 years they have been providing the study material for all the Java certification exams. May be the product has been reviewed by several exam takers and Java professionals, but I just want to share my opinion about this Training Lab simulator since it was very helpful for me.
Plan, Practice and Achieve - these are the three sections available in Training Lab simulator.
Objectives - When we open the product using our email ID and Password, this is the first tab coming under the PLAN section. Here we can see Exam Objectives, Product objectives, Topic wise questions and exam benefits.
Set goals - After Objectives, set goals comes next in PLAN section, which helps the candidates to set their goals against each exam objectives for their exam preparation.
Set schedule - This is the third and last tab in PLAN section. The set schedule helps the candidates to measure the start and end date of their study plan.
Pre Measurement - It's nothing but the trial demo section. There are only limited number of questions available here. Candidates can use these questions without purchasing the product. So it helps the users to identify the quality of the material.
Basic Sessions - Training Lab contains both the study guide and mock exams. The theory concepts are discussed in this Basic Session.
Advanced Sessions - The concepts discussed in Basic Session will be explained in detail with examples in this Advanced Session.
These two sections not only have the theoretical and example programs but also have sample mock questions to memorize the concepts. I really like these two sessions in Training Lab simulator because these two sessions are more helpful to improve candidate's knowledge level in exam objectives.
Session Rewind Quiz - It helps to check the answer instantly for each question. Each answer have a certain seconds to answer, otherwise it will get time out. It's really a good practice to attend all the questions in a given time.
Mock Exam Lab - Like a real exam, this mock exam lab contains some pre-set exams with answer explanations.
Final Exam - It's also like a real exam which helps the candidates to judge their readiness to appear for real exam.
Session Rewind Quiz and Mock Exam Lab have the customize option, which helps to change the number of questions and the time limitation. It also contains three levels of test - Beginner, Intermediate and Expert.
In Final Exam, we can change (decrease) the total exam time but we cannot change the total number of questions. This is the only difference between Final exam and Mock exam.
These three exam labs (Quiz, Mock and Final) have the special options in the answer explanation page to note your references and send your query to EPractize Labs Team. "Send query" was very helpful to me, because when I got any doubts, I just typed my query and simply clicked the "send query" button, which automatically created a support ticket and sent our queries to EPractize Labs support team. There is no need to compose a big mail or open a new ticket manually.
I strong recommend you complete all the above mentioned mock exams, before you appear for the final OCPJP 7 certification exam.
Focus Lab - This is the exact area to find out our weak areas. I am really impressed with this feature too. When I give a wrong answer to a question, it saves the report and also remind us how many times we give the wrong answer to this specified question. This is a simply superb feature.
My References - If you find any useful website links related to the syllabus you can save it in here for your reference. For this, just select the chapter name and then give a name for the link. We can also Update and delete our references too.
From Pre-Measurement to My References, all these sections are coming under in PRACTICE.
Next one is "Achieve".
ACHIEVE has two sections: Report and Assessment.
Report - The report section saves a summary of our exam preparation. The reports shows your progress of all the exams you had attempted so far. You can select any exam lab to view the reports from the "Reports Lab".
Assessment - Your goals and schedules displayed in four different segments here:
Goals Tracker - This section displays the graphical representation of your set goals against your achieved goals for every topic.
Gantt chart - This one displays the Gantt view of the lab-wise Report.
Schedule Tracker - It displays the planned vs actual tracking information of all the labs in tabular format.
PPA Tracker - If you get successful with your goal, PPA Tracker gives you exam completion certificate.
You can save the reports in your PC using "Publish Report" tab.
What disappoints me with this simulator is, it is a Windows based application. We could not run it on Linux, Mac or any other OS.
Another thought I have is, if they give an option to compile and run the programs in their application itself, it will be really awesome. Any way I finished my very first Java certification successfully with the help of OCPJP 7 Certification Training Lab. Now I am a Oracle Certified Professional. Oh, my God, I can't believe this. My big big thanks to EPractize Labs Team.
I recommend you to buy a OCPJP 7 Certification Training Lab, if you are going for OCPJP 7 exam because I used this one and got good success with this. I don't know about other certification materials provided by EPractize Labs.
My next plan is to go for Web Service exam. I am going to consider EPractize Labs study material since I am very impressed with their study materials. But definitely I will be reading a lot of reviews and referring to the forums before I make the final decision on what to buy. I will come back here soon and share my experience with that, once I make up my mind.
Read Pitfalls in Java, one of the most robust programming languages
I am in the middle of doing the epractizelabs software for 1Z0-805 Java 7 Upgrade exam. It is pretty poor and not very well tested. I pick an answer(say selection 'a') from a quiz question, but on the results or answer page the answer from selection 'b' is shown(which is the wrong answer). This did not happen just once or twice - it was getting irritating. Also, there is not a great deal of difference between the information displayed in the "basic" sessions and "advanced "sessions". It appears they copied and pasted a lot of it. This is a disappointment. Should have purchased another exam prep software.