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Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:22 pm
by ksnortum
I wanted to start a thread about grammar and typos but I didn't want to put it on the questions' specific thread because this is not what people want when looking for answers on a question. Still, I think it's important for a test that asks us to be very picky about code to be a little picky about these subjects.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:25 pm
by ksnortum
In general, the software will say "You answered wrong" or "You answered right." Technically, it should be "You answered correctly" and "You answered incorrectly." "You answered wrong" seems a little jarring to me, slightly insulting.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:36 pm
by ksnortum
Minor: in enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.972 the code is not mono-spaced.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:20 pm
by ksnortum
In question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.901, the last sentence, "ensre" should be "ensure".

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:24 pm
by ksnortum
In question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.1018, when the full explanation is displayed, the top of the options section is cut off.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:40 pm
by ksnortum
The explanation for question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.831 contains these two nearly identical sentences:

"Ideally, you should be able to access the member field in the method directly by using the name of the member (in this example, myValue). However, because of shadowing, when you use myValue, it refers to the local variable instead of the instance field."

"Ideally, you should be able to access the member field in the method directly by using the name myValue but in this case, the method parameter shadows the member field because it has the same name. So when you use myValue, you are actually using the method parameter instead of the member field."

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 8:19 am
by admin
Hi,
Thank you very much for giving your valuable feedback. We sincerely appreciate that.

Regarding, "You answered right/wrong". Let us confirm that with a grammar expert and we will change that accordingly. Though I think it is right from US English perspective. But again, we will confirm it.

Regarding, 2.1018, we are investigating and will fix it as soon as we find the issue.

All others have now been fixed.

thank you,
Paul.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 4:42 pm
by ksnortum
In question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.1178:

"Which one of the following class definitions is/are a legal definition of a class that cannot be instantiated?"

There is no need for "is/are". "Which one" is singular so the verb should be "is".

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 4:47 pm
by ksnortum
Thanks, Paul. As I keep doing the practice tests (and it looks like I'm going to do test 5 :-( ) I'll post something here if I find it. You can post a reply or not, whichever you like. I'll assume if the comment was helpful you'll change something and if it was not, you'll ignore it. ;-)

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 4:50 pm
by ksnortum
In question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.1362:

"Which of the following statements are true?"

The subject is "which", which is singular, so: "Which of the following statements is true?

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:24 pm
by ksnortum
Minor: in question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.1313 the code is not mono-spaced.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 6:58 pm
by admin
Regarding is/are. The issue is as follows: The current Oracle exams tell you the number of options you have to select. However,
1. it is possible that they change that and don't mention the number of correct options because that is how it used to be a long time back.
2. telling the number of correct options makes the question easy to answer and so some candidates may want to hide the number of correct options.

So to enable this scenario, we try to write the problem statement such that it does not give away the number of correct options. If there are more than one correct options, "Which is" seems wrong and if there is only 1 correct option, "Which is" is a dead give away. So we have tried to use "Which is/are ...". So irrespective of whether the number of correct options is to be told or not, the problem statement still makes sense. At least, that is the reasoning. Do you think it is ok? If not, if you have a better suggestion, please do let us know and we will be happy to change.

-Paul.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 9:19 am
by admin
ksnortum wrote:In general, the software will say "You answered wrong" or "You answered right." Technically, it should be "You answered correctly" and "You answered incorrectly." "You answered wrong" seems a little jarring to me, slightly insulting.
Hi,
We have incorporated your suggestion and changed "You answered right/wrong" to "You answered correctly/incorrectly"

thanks again for your valuable feedback!
Paul.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:39 pm
by ksnortum
Thank you for taking my suggestions to heart! It's very gratifying.

I see your point about the "which" questions. Technically, "which" is singular. But I think you could construct a sentence like this: "Which option(s) will cause the program to compile and run without error?" Otherwise you are kind of stuck with the more awkward "Which option(s) is/are the best?" If I see another question with this structure I'll make a specific suggestion.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 1:40 pm
by ksnortum
Question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.984: The last sentence ends with two question marks.

This is also a "which" question:

"Which of the following statements about the above method are true?"

I think this would work so as not to give away the number of options that should be selected:

"Which statement or statements are true about the above method?"

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:46 pm
by ksnortum
Minor: question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.1201,

"Now consider the following class:"

The above sentence is mono-spaced and should be the standard text font. Because it's between two code snippets it looks like code at first.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 5:05 pm
by ksnortum
Question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.1163:

"Although it does not make sense to make static variable transient as static variables are not serialized anyway, it is valid to do so."

This is a little unclear. I would suggest:

"Although it does not make sense to make static variables transient as they are not serialized, it is valid to do so."

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 1:18 pm
by ksnortum
Question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.839:

"Change doStuff in Great to throw only FileNotFoundException as well as IllegalArgumentException."

I don't think "only" belongs in that sentence.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 2:46 pm
by ksnortum
Question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.1222:

In the third option, the explanation crowds out the option text.

Re: Grammar, typos, formatting

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 2:57 pm
by ksnortum
Minor, but annoying.

I just noticed that the test uses three types of fonts: serif (like Times New Roman), sans-serif (like Arial), and mono-spaced (like Courier).

There isn't a lot of consistency with respect to which is used. Mono-spaced is almost always used for code, but when you "should" use serif and sans-serif is not clear.

Take question enthuware.ocajp.i.v7.2.1005. The question text is serif and mono-spaced. "You answered..." and "You had to select..." are sans-serif. The first option is sans-serif. The next three options are serif and mono-spaced. The last option is sans-serif. The last option's explanation is sans-serif and mono-spaced. The boxed explanation is serif and mono-spaced.

So I'm not sure what "should" be, but some consistency would help.