Rating: 
Summary: Worthwhile, but supplement
Review: Although I recommend this book for the upgrade exam, there are a few precautions. I discovered via the self tests that the discussion on partitioned indexes was pretty inadequate (read the Oracle Concepts guide). If you don't use the networking stuff, you will need supplementary reading too. There are some aggrevating problems with typos/edits (like object views), but most of the material is otherwise strong.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent resource
Review: Excellent resource for preparing for the exam. Using this book as my main study guide and supplementing with other sources on the "hot" topics (partitioning, objects, RMAN, etc.), I was able to pass the test the first attempt. I will definitely be purchasing the upgrade to 8i book once it becomes available.
Rating:
Summary: Read Book, Pass Test!
Review: Great book! The "Exam Cram" title is very appropriate. I spent one full day reading the entire book and passed the test the next day. Excellent!
Rating:
Summary: I passed my Oracle 8 Upgrade test with this book!
Review: Great book. This book was a great help in passing my test. Completed the book and the upgrade test in less than 1 month.
Rating:
Summary: Quickest Way to Pass the Exam
Review: I am hooked on the exam cram series. This book gives harder questions then the Oracle Press books. This makes you think more about the material, which in turn makes you better prepared. I felt that using this book gave me a well rounded knowledge of the Oracle material, and the Oracle Reference books helped me in fine tuning those areas I needed help in. With the help of this book I passed the OCP Oracle 8 Upgrade Exam! Study Time was 1 month.
Rating:
Summary: Complete and well organized
Review: I didn't actually write this exam (I've passed directly the Oracle8 track exams) but I bought this book because I needed a good comparison between Oracle7 and Oracle8. Even if there are some errors (I've found no book without ANY errors util now so I'm not lowering the number of stars only for this), the contents is very complete and well organized. Use it for the test or if you are an Oracle7 DBA who needs a book which covers well the Oracle8 new features.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good but inaqqurate
Review: I passed exam (58 correct answer per 60 questios) using only this book for preparation. The good things that it's relatively short and information is given in condensed form. If you have some practical background and know general terms (and you should know it as 7.3 DBA!) you don't need to waste your time on basics. The bad thing that it has many minor mistakes. It's not crucial for a test, but a bit annoying.
Rating:
Summary: VERY GOOD if not excellent
Review: These are the GOOD stuffs : ONE PAGE CRAM SHEET -very helpful, PARTITION TABLES explanation -Excellent, RMAN & Other Oracle 8 new features - EXCELLENT Qestions at the end of chapters and 60 questions at the end - EXCELLENT This book was a supplement to my exam preparation and helped me to score 82%. These are the BAD stuffs : Oracle Objects and NET80 Enhancements explanations are not enough. You need to read more books for this.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not excellent!
Review: This book has some really strong parts such as: 1) organization of the book with excellent coverage of exam topics (short and informative), 2) review questions on the end of each chapter are very well prepared and even harder than the real ones. Usually this is not the case with exam preparation guides. 3) last chapter alone with 60 sample test questions is worth purchasing the book. Not only that questions are picked up and presented carefully, a big help are explanations of why the particular answer is correct or wrong. Great stuff! So why I didn't give the book five stars as other reviewers? While reading the book I found many (minor) typos in text, source code, questions, answers (most of them as consequence of misuse of COPY/PASTE or writing example of code on the fly) which I found annoying at least. There are some more serious mistakes like statements "Prefixed indexes are built on the same partition boundary as the table..." or "...you can not partition a bitmap index." I have a filling that author simply didn't re-read this book and technical reviewer was obviously not up to the task of proofreading Oracle syntax and technical details. (If you're interesting I can send you my own version of errata - I'm still waiting the errata from the author.) On the bright sight this is certainly the best study guide for upgrade exam on the market. Highly recommended! Btw. I passed the exam with 60 points (100%).
Rating:
Summary: Good but not excellent!
Review: This book has some really strong parts such as: 1) organization of the book with excellent coverage of exam topics (short and informative), 2) review questions on the end of each chapter are very well prepared and even harder than the real ones. Usually this is not the case with exam preparation guides. 3) last chapter alone with 60 sample test questions is worth purchasing the book. Not only that questions are picked up and presented carefully, a big help are explanations of why the particular answer is correct or wrong. Great stuff! So why I didn't give the book five stars as other reviewers? While reading the book I found many (minor) typos in text, source code, questions, answers (most of them as consequence of misuse of COPY/PASTE or writing example of code on the fly) which I found annoying at least. There are some more serious mistakes like statements "Prefixed indexes are built on the same partition boundary as the table..." or "...you can not partition a bitmap index." I have a filling that author simply didn't re-read this book and technical reviewer was obviously not up to the task of proofreading Oracle syntax and technical details. (If you're interesting I can send you my own version of errata - I'm still waiting the errata from the author.) On the bright sight this is certainly the best study guide for upgrade exam on the market. Highly recommended! Btw. I passed the exam with 60 points (100%).
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