Using Java as the language to detect if someone has the "programming gene" does not make any sense. There is so much cognitive overhead to writing a simple program in Java compared to, say, Python that there will be many other factors involved in why a student would end up performing badly.

In my own case I disliked Java so much in my first year of University because I couldn't understand why there was so much effort just to get this little black screen to print "Hello, World."

I would go on but I actually already wrote about this a couple years ago on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/84c90/i_fear_as...