Has anyone taken the ICCP C++ exam? If so, can you recommend some textbooks to help me prepare for it? I have been programming in COBOL/Fortran/macro-assembler/BASIC in the Financial Services Industry for 20+ years but have not used C/C++ or OOP. I have recently taken an OOP Design course so have the basic OOP concepts down but need to work with a good C++ textbook(s). Thanks
I don't know anything about this exam, but for a decent C++ book, I would recommend Bruce Eckel's Thinking in C++, Vol 1.
I passed the ICCP C++ exam last month. I thought the test was easy compared to the resources I used to prepare for the test. I probably could have passed just using Schaums Outline of Programming with C++ by Hubbard. I also used NetG's online courses (provided by my company). They were very good and covered way more material than the test. The tests provided with the NetG courses were very good. I also used the following: C++ Primer Plus 3rd Ed by Prata w/Instructor's Manual by Snaith C++ Primer 3rd Ed by Lippman with Answer Book by Tondo C++ How to Program 3rd Ed by Deitel and Deitel along with their Cybermedia online (CD-ROM) based course The book I liked the most was Lippman's C++ Primer but it covers C++ in much more depth and is much more comprehensive than is required for passing this exam. I am still using this text as I am supporting applications coded in C++ that appear to use every possible feature of the language.
can you tell me what was tested? how many questions? what sort of topics? how long did the test take? multiple choice? short answer? (did you have to write functions and classes?) were algorithms tested?
The test was 70 multiple choice questions, and I was given 2 hours to complete it and I think I finished it in about an hour. There is an brief outline of the requirements for the test at http://www.iccp.org/iccpnew/outlines.html#15 C++ Language 1. Basic Language Elements 2. Expressions and Operators 3. Flow Control 4. Arrays and Pointers 5. Object Oriented Programming 6. Functions 7. Exception Handling 8. Standard Libraries 9. The Preprocessor An outline that is a bit more fleshed out is available in ICCP's handbook and at Excelsior College's student web site (login required) in pdf format (otherwise I'd simply cut and paste it here). These include a 12 (or 14) sample question test that is indicative of the type and difficulty of the questions on the actual test. There were no questions about generic algorithms, container classes or templates. If I remember correctly there were a very few basic questions about C++'s object oriented features (composition, inheritance, polymorphism) and very simple questions about exceptions (now that I think of it, I don't think the Schaums book covered exceptions).
