Rating: 
Summary: Ok, but at times, this book is an insult
Review: Overall, I found this book useful for studying for OCA, but it definitely lacks in some areas. I passed my SQL exam with room to spare, but I found that the actual exam questions were significantly more difficult than any of the practice exams.As mentioned in other reviews, the CD-ROM is really just an online version of all the questions that are in the book. Absolutely nothing is new. This is quite disappointing since the book, had it included more questions on the CD-ROM, could have been a great resource. I just finished reading the second section and am currently studying for the DB Fundi's 1 exam. I am getting quite frustrated for several reasons. - The practice exams ask questions from material that NOT COVERED AT ALL in the book. Specifically, there is nothing in the book regarding SQL*Loader or the keep pool, yet practice exam 2 contains questions about them, provides answers, and assumes that they are covered in topic 1.1 when they clearly are not. - The book breaks down each section and mentions the percentage of the questions on the exam that will be from that section. However, the practice exams appear to not be formed correctly. Instead, they appear to be formed randomly, or by a small, trained monkey. Example: The book states that up to 3% of the exam will involve globalization support questions. Yet, one of the practice exams has 5 out of 60 questions about it (8.3%). This is more than double the indicated amount. The saddest part of this whole thing is that this book is supposedly "Oracle Certified." In addition, the cover of the book proclaims "Full Coverage of Exams 1Z0-007 & IZ0-031" and there is a bullet point on the back cover indicating "100% complete coverage of all official exam objectives." As demonstrated above, this is clearly not the case. I am trying to pursue getting in contact with someone who can make this situation better, or provide materials, but aside from the errata page, there doesn't seem to be much help available. I sincerely hope that this book improves in later editions and that others will not have the bumpy and somewhat incomplete experience I have had.
Rating:
Summary: Many certification topics missing..Do not rely on this book
Review: This is a pretty good book but I was shocked to see questions in the exam (both the exams) that were not at all covered by this book. For example this book claims to list all datatypes in oracle but it does not list the DSI and other Interval datatypes. In exam 2 I realised that one has to read more in depth than what the book suggests. I found it missing several points for the fundamental 1 exam. So Please do not trust only on this book. It does not give a complete picture
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