I have a set of revision questions asked by last year's students. Most of them are applicable to this year also.
The document also includes some advice on how to do well in exams, based on experience marking the Semester A exams last year.
Practicals plan for weeks 1 -- 4
Cover sheet from first handout
Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) "enables the programmer to create distributed Java-to-Java applications, in which the methods of remote Java objects can be invoked from other Java virtual machines, possibly on different hosts. A Java program can make a call on a remote object once it obtains a reference to the remote object, either by looking up the remote object in the bootstrap-naming service provided by RMI, or by receiving the reference as an argument or a return value. A client can call a remote object in a server, and that server can also be a client of other remote objects. RMI uses Object Serialization to marshal and unmarshal parameters and does not truncate types, supporting true object-oriented polymorphism." The above description comes from the Java JDK 1.1.1 documentation's Guide to New Features. This includes a tutorial "Getting Started Using RMI" which shows how to build a simple RMI application. Drawing a diagram of the components of this application will help you to understand how they fit together and what role each plays in the complete system.