Which collection class allows you to associate its elements with key values, and allows you to retrieve objects in FIFO (first-in, first-out) sequence?

java.lang.StringBuffer is the only class in the list that uses the default methods provided by class Object.

However A, B and C are all wrong. Each of these would result in a narrowing conversion. Whereas we want a widening conversion, therefore the only correct answer is D. Don't be put off by the long cast, this applies only to the variable x and not the rest of the expression. It is the variable y (of type double) that forces the widening conversion to double.

Java's widening conversions are:

- From a byte to a short, an int, a long, a float, or a double.

- From a short, an int, a long, a float, or a double.

- From a char to an int, a long, a float, or a double.

- From an int to a long, a float, or a double.

- From a long to a float, or a double.

- From a float to a double.

Option A is correct. It uses correct array declaration and correct array construction.

Option B is incorrect. It generates a compiler error: incompatible types because the array variable declaration is not correct. The array construction expects a reference type, but it is supplied with a primitive type in the declaration.

Option C is incorrect. It generates a compiler error: incompatible types because a string literal is not assignable to a character type variable.

Option D is wrong, it generates a compiler error <identifier> expected. The compiler thinks that you are trying to create two arrays because there are two array initialisers to the right of the equals, whereas your intention was to create a 3 x 3 two-dimensional array.

Access modifiers dictate which classes, not which instances, may access features.

Methods and variables are collectively known as members. Method and variable members are given access control in exactly the same way.

private makes a member accessible only from within its own class

protected makes a member accessible only to classes in the same package or subclass of the class

default access is very similar to protected (make sure you spot the difference) default access makes a member accessible only to classes in the same package.

public means that all other classes regardless of the package that they belong to, can access the member (assuming the class itself is visible)

final makes it impossible to extend a class, when applied to a method it prevents a method from being overridden in a subclass, when applied to a variable it makes it impossible to reinitialise a variable once it has been initialised

abstract declares a method that has not been implemented.

transient indicates that a variable is not part of the persistent state of an object.

volatile indicates that a thread must reconcile its working copy of the field with the master copy every time it accesses the variable.

After examining the above it should be obvious that the access modifier that provides the most restrictions for methods to be accessed from the subclasses of the class from another package is C - protected. A is also a contender but C is more restrictive, B would be the answer if the constraint was the "same package" instead of "any package" in other words the subclasses clause in the question eliminates default.

Hash table based implementation of the Map interface.

The char type is integral but unsigned. The range of a variable of type char is from 0 to 2¹⁶-1 or 0 to 65535. Java characters are Unicode, which is a 16-bit encoding capable of representing a wide range of international characters. If the most significant nine bits of a char are 0, then the encoding is the same as seven-bit ASCII.

Option B is correct. A set is a collection that contains no duplicate elements. The iterator returns the elements in no particular order (unless this set is an instance of some class that provides a guarantee). A map cannot contain duplicate keys but it may contain duplicate values. List and Collection allow duplicate elements.

Option A is wrong. A map is an object that maps keys to values. A map cannot contain duplicate keys; each key can map to at most one value. The Map interface provides three collection views, which allow a map's contents to be viewed as a set of keys, collection of values, or set of key-value mappings. The order of a map is defined as the order in which the iterators on the map's collection views return their elements. Some map implementations, like the TreeMap class, make specific guarantees as to their order (ascending key order); others, like the HashMap class, do not (does not guarantee that the order will remain constant over time).

Option C is wrong. A list is an ordered collection (also known as a sequence). The user of this interface has precise control over where in the list each element is inserted. The user can access elements by their integer index (position in the list), and search for elements in the list. Unlike sets, lists typically allow duplicate elements.

Option D is wrong. A collection is also known as a sequence. The user of this interface has precise control over where in the list each element is inserted. The user can access elements by their integer index (position in the list), and search for elements in the list. Unlike sets, lists typically allow duplicate elements.

The iteration order of a Collection is the order in which an iterator moves through the elements of the Collection. The iteration order of a LinkedHashMap is determined by the order in which elements are inserted.

When a new LinkedHashMap is created by passing a reference to an existing Collection to the constructor of a LinkedHashMap the Collection.addAll method will ultimately be invoked.

The addAll method uses an iterator to the existing Collection to iterate through the elements of the existing Collection and add each to the instance of the new LinkedHashMap.

Since the iteration order of the LinkedHashMap is determined by the order of insertion, the iteration order of the new LinkedHashMap must be the same as the interation order of the old Collection.

All of the collection classes allow you to grow or shrink the size of your collection. ArrayList provides an index to its elements. The newer collection classes tend not to have synchronized methods. Vector is an older implementation of ArrayList functionality and has synchronized methods; it is slower than ArrayList.