Here was my response: if firstExample.equals("secondExample")) { console.printf("first is equal to second"); }

The first problem we have is a compiler error.

Bummer! There is a compiler error. Please click on preview to view your syntax errors!

So we click preview and get the following:

JavaTester.java:108: error: '(' expected

if firstExample.equals("secondExample")) {

^

1 error

This tells us you are missing a '(' right after the if statement. This makes sense, you did put the closing one so this was probably a mistake.

Now we get the following error:

Bummer! Are you sure you used the equals method of firstExample and then called console.printf?

This one is because you are comparing 'firstExample' with a literal string. I am going to remove the quotation marks from secondExample.

Finally, your code for task 1 is:

// I have imported a java.io.Console for you, it is named console. 
String firstExample = "hello";
String secondExample = "hello";
String thirdExample = "HELLO";
if (firstExample.equals(secondExample)) { //<--------both corrections are on this line.
  console.printf("first is equal to second");
}