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Rating: 
Summary: This book is out of date
Review: As the book title tells this book is for OCP it covers many important topics in a simple way. I have a doubt whether OCP questions are based on this book. We can see around 90% of questions from this book. A must for OCP preparation. If something is not clear (not understood) then read other document. Such a book should not be diluted with briefing of minute items. Fantastic for OCP.
Rating:
Summary: Buyers Beware !!!
Review: I am an IT consultant and Oracle DBA with 8 years of experience in high-end technology, working for a large international bank in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I have decided to become Oracle certified because it would certainly give me more visibility in my work. Now, I am an Oracle8 OCP DBA with an average score of 97% in the five exams of the Oracle8 DBA track. I must admit it was very difficult at first to find out what the best way would be to prepare for the tests. It took me some time to understand that the exams are entirely based on the original Oracle course books and that the practice tests offered by Self Test Software are a superset of the real exams. Now I have a keen perception of what the whole process is all about. The real trick to get a 90+% score is to attend the Oracle classes and cram with the STS practice tests. However, this is a rather expensive way to study,...................... When I fist set off my study, I bought Mr. Jason Couchman's Oracle8 DBA Certification Guide by Oracle Press. Bad choice... It was completely out of synch with the real exam contents and had a lot of typos and gross conceptual errors. I do feel sorry for those people who were caught unawares buying the big red book. I wonder how Oracle signed off on it. I also bought the 'Oracle 7 Exam Cram Tests 1 and 2' by Mr. Michael Ault and 'Oracle 7 Exam Cram Tests 3 and 4' by Mr. Ault Mrs. Anne Pascavage. They were both better than Mr. Couchman's, but a bit confusing, especially because they mixed two tests in each book. Besides, they did not cover Oracle8. As a last resort, I borrowed the original course materials from an acquaintance, with the exception of the Network Administration book. I read the reviews on Mrs. Pascavage's 'Oracle8: Network Administration', and decided to order it ......... I was surprised. This book is really great ! It was evident that the author was careful to study the original oracle course material and practice test, giving priceless tips and accurately separating the chapters according to those of the course books and the exams sections. Also, the questions in the book are very close to the real ones one would encounter. Congratulations, Mrs. Pascavage !
Rating:
Summary: Buyers Beware !!!
Review: I bought mine from 'Surpluscomputerbooks'. This seller is very
unscrupulous! I thought it was for Oracle8i, but it turned out to be for Oracle7 !!! Beware of what you buy into, someone might be dumping out of date material on you!
Rating: 
Summary: Exam Cram is just a reference book
Review: I have bought both exam cram and Couchman. I found that exam Cram are quite cryptics. they are more a reference book than an exam preparation book. You may succeed in your exams using this book, but this means that you learned by hart. There are simply not enough explanations, on the reasons why you must choose this instruction rather than this one. Sometime you don't event know what the instruction refers to. On the other hand, I found Couchman excellent in introducing, it covers lot's of general principles but goes not very deep in the way of using the instructions and commands. Worse, Couchman omit quit a lot of parameters and option in what it presents so that you may be surprised to find additional parameters to the command in the Exam Cram, but again in Cram telegraphic usal style. On the other and, you will discover that Exam Cram is silent about whole part of Oracle. I recommand to buy BOTH books as it is meaningful invest in comparison whith the return you will have. Also, by Cross checking Couchman with Exam Cram you will spot the faults. You will also need the 56 Meg of Oracle rdms generic documentation in html as ultimate reference. They are excellent but really to big in order to prepare for an examen. It takes months just t oread them. In summary : Couchman open the study, Cram sometime draw your atttention on points Couchman omitted, gives useful hints while Oracle generic documentation will be your reference. I give 2 stars because Exam helped me in 5 or 6 questions (out of 60) and that's enough to justify the purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: Certification
Review: I passed the exams mainly with this book. This books is useful only for the certification. The initial cram sheet was "extremely" useful.
Rating:
Summary: too much for test #1
Review: If you are just be preparing for test 1, the contents of this book may be confusing since it focuses a lot on the DBA stuff which will not appear in test 1. On the other hand, the sample test in the end is extremely similar to the real test. It goes into detail very much.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent source for the final two weeks of preperation
Review: Let me first start by thanking you very much.I just recently gave my first exam (Introduction to SQL & PL/SQL),on February 1, and am happy to tell you that I passed with a score of 680(50 out of 60). I owe a lot of this success to you and the people at Self Test Software (for providing a excellent source of questions likely to appear in the test). Let me tell you honestly that at first I did not think very highly of your book and was even repenting the fact that I had bought the book. I have also bought the other book for DBA exam by Oracle Press and I thought that it was a better book. But the more I studied about SQL and PL/SQL the more I began to really appreciate your book, and getting more and more disillusioned by the thicker more expensive book. Your book is deceivingly thin and very concise. Your book helped me tremendously in the last two weeks before the exam. I honestly did not even open the other book. There were just too many mistakes and vague explanations in the other book to help me.Just to give you an example on page 173 in J. Couchman's book he specifically says that order by can be used in a Create View statement. I tried this on my Oracle server and found this to be totally untrue. You clearly mention that order by cannot be used in the create view statement. Sir, your book is great. Not only for the excellent and concise(I think that My initial apprehension about your book was for the stupid reason that the book was very thin)way that you have written this book but also the questions that you provide at the end of each chapter and also the 60 questions for each test at the end. I think your book is worth it only for those Q&A. I do not have any experience with programming at the job level but I do try and practice at home. I really am very grateful that your book has helped me pass this first test and given me a better chance(hopefully) at finding a job--where I can learn to program and implement the other fine things that Oracle offers, in a real professional atmosphere. I am not very rich and cannot afford to take any classes offered by Oracle. I have to rely on my own and learn from my mistakes and try and practice as much as possible. This book has helped me do just that and a lot more. I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good review material
Review: There were two reasons I decided to buy this book: 1) The Exam Cram series is pretty good overall; and 2) Michael Ault was the author. I am pleased with my purchase. I used to be very familiar with Oracle through version 7.0, but have used a competing product for the past 6 years. This book was all I needed to successfully review for the first two exams. Yes there are a few typos. However, I thought Mr. Ault did a good job of not only creating a good study guide, but also providing a decent desk top reference book as well. It isn't perfect, but it is useful; and given the competive pressures of getting such a book to market, quite accurate as well. Kudos!
Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: This book is a very good exam cram. Usually Oracle books are very long and thick. I guess it's because they are written using cut and paste. But not this one. It's one of the shortest book (I mean number of pages) but it gives you all required infromation for these two exams. There are a few mistakes, but they are obvious and not confusing. I passed both exams with a good score. But you should remember, that these exams'll be retired in August, 2000. Probably, if you have strong Oracle 7 background it would be easier to you to get Oracle 7 certificate and then upgrade it to Oracle 8. I did it and it was very easy because there is another Coriolis book for the upgrade exam and it's also very nice.
Rating:
Summary: The Sample tests are the best available
Review: While the book has a few errors, it is still a very good book to have in one's study for the OCP exams. If one is looking for the "one" book to have all the answers for the OCP, you will not find it in any of the OCP books available. The "expensive" Oracle Press book by Couchman does not have the "magic" answers either. The layout needs work; however, the sample exams are at the same level as the real exam. I know of people who received about the same percentage of correct answers on both the sample exams in Exam Cram and the real OCP exams. Like all Exam prep. books, a good tool for those professionals who have "real life" experience / training as a DBA and just need a book to brush up on select areas. Not a book for DBA-want-a-bes who have no practical experience in the DBA field. Book is not intended to be a DBA reference but solely for preparing for the OCP exams. Some people seem to lose sight of this fact. Just like the OCP exams, this book is not for novices; however, professionals with "real" DBA experience will find this book useful in preparing for the OCP exams.
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