Preparation

The best preparation for this essay exam is writing a good design choices document. If you take the time to clearly describe how you handled the previously listed aspects of your project, the essay exam will be quick and easy. You need to restate (from recall) only the key details of the design choices document for your essay answers.

Some candidates write brief README.TXT and DESIGN_CHOICES.TXT documents and still pass. This approach is risky, however, and it won't help you with the essay exam. It is better to take an extra few days so that you can describe your work more thoroughly. You deserve the credit, so make sure you get it. Please see Chapter 5, "Documentation and Javadoc Comments," for more details on these two documents.

I actually typed out short answers to all the questions I thought might appear on the exam, and my efforts paid off. My answers were concise and showed clear thought, and they took just minutes to complete.