To prepare for the SCJP exam, I started by programming and reading the Complete Java2 Certification Guide (by Heller) first, followed by using this book about just 10 days before the exam. These two books focus on topics differently and certainly make up for the weak part of each other. In fact, the Java2 Exam Cram offers some insight on Java in addition to the coverage of the SCJP exam itself. The sample questions are more difficult in this book while some questions on the real exam are trickier. If you can score 75-80 on the final exam in both books, you should be ready for the exam (passing score is 60). This book has good coverage on Thread, Event, Garbage collection, inner class, Flow control and Exception. Make sure you understand everything in the book so that you will feel very confident on the real exam day. Good luck.