Rating: 
Summary: OCP Oracle9i Certification Boxed Set
Review: I have to agree with everyone's negative comments about the 1st book. My brother works as a high level DB designer for Oracle and after I showed him "Intro to Oracle9i SQL" he agreed with me there is no surprise why I failed exam 1Z0-007 on my first try. I read this book cover to cover 3 times and did nearly all of the practice questions and exams. Despite this I encountered questions on the exam about concepts I never saw before. There is probably nothing more frustrating than trying to learn this material (from a beginner's perspective) and you figure out that you know the Author is incorrect on some concepts and practice questions. The Author should be the expert on the material I was depending on this. I purchased the OCP Oracle9i DBA Certification Boxed Set and now I am going to purchase the Sybex series to fill in the gaps. I will keep in mind the Performance Tuning book is the only one in this set that has received good reviews. I believe the rest of the books will become good dust collectors. Good Luck!
Rating:
Summary: OCP Oracle9i Certification Boxed Set
Review: I have to agree with everyone's negative comments about the 1st book. My brother works as a high level DB designer for Oracle and after I showed him "Intro to Oracle9i SQL" he agreed with me there is no surprise why I failed exam 1Z0-007 on my first try. I read this book cover to cover 3 times and did nearly all of the practice questions and exams. Despite this I encountered questions on the exam about concepts I never saw before. There is probably nothing more frustrating than trying to learn this material (from a beginner's perspective) and you figure out that you know the Author is incorrect on some concepts and practice questions. The Author should be the expert on the material I was depending on this. I purchased the OCP Oracle9i DBA Certification Boxed Set and now I am going to purchase the Sybex series to fill in the gaps. I will keep in mind the Performance Tuning book is the only one in this set that has received good reviews. I believe the rest of the books will become good dust collectors. Good Luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Not really good.
Review: I just bought the boxed set few weeks ago.... going through the first book and already found the error contains unbearable. This is suppose to be an exam guide~!! Furthermore the errata at the web site haven't been update for quite some time thus there is no way to find out what is true and false in the book from the author/publisher. Whenever i came across something that i feel doubtful i have to refer to other material trying to verify the correctness of the content and sometimes the content are contradicting, i found this very irritating.
I admit that these books are well written, but what is the use of it when the content can't be trusted?
Rating: 
Summary: Read the Oracle online documentation
Review: I passed the OCP, but I found the Oracle online documentation is way more useful than any of the books in this set, plus it's free.
Anyway, I did not read the first book, thus no comment.
The Fundamental I and Performance book are all right. As pointed by other reviews, plenty of editing errors.
The Fundamental II is a dump. The author cannot express himself in clear unstandable English. The part of the book that I can understand are copied directly from online documentation.
I would definitely NOT recommend buying the whole set.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs Polishing
Review: Overall, this is a reasonably useful set of books. The books can be used both as general reference and as study guides for the OCP exams. There are several errors, especially in volume 1, OCP Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL Exam Guide. I recommend downloading the errata for volume 1 and marking the changes before you start reading. Also, I suggest you run through all the examples and verify the answers given in the books. I found a few errors that the errata didn't catch. These books are a nice place to start for test preparation, but don't rely on them as your only test preparation guide. I found the questions on the tests to be much more difficult than the practice questions in these books.
Rating:
Summary: Does not truly prepare you for the test!
Review: Since I already passed the SQL test without this book I started with Fundamentals I. I studied by installing and using Oracle 9i on my home machine. After taking and failing this test, I can see why. This book is a POOOOOOOR guide. I am now looking into Oracle User Groups and other non-expensive testing options...
Rating:
Summary: Does not truly prepare you for the test!
Review: Since I already passed the SQL test without this book I started with Fundamentals I. I studied by installing and using Oracle 9i on my home machine. After taking and failing this test, I can see why. This book is a POOOOOOOR guide. I am now looking into Oracle User Groups and other non-expensive testing options...
Rating: 
Summary: A definite must buy
Review: The book set contains all of the necessary subject and has many relevant examples to help in the real test. I have used the set and got my certification very fast. There are some errors but those have no effect on the general content of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Book For OCP 9iDBA Exam Preparation
Review: This book set is very useful for the preparation of OCP 9iDBA Certification Exam. The materials required for all four exams available in one set with less price. This book saved my preparation time by half. I have gone through first two books (1. OCP Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL Exam Guide &
2. OCP Oracle9i Database: Fundamentals I Exam Guide), I find it very useful to acheive OCA. Yet to go through other two guides. Pros: Less Price, More than 2000 Pages with practice questions and answers. The CDROM with this set is very useful for the sample test. Cons: Some editing erros. ...
Rating:
Summary: Be forewarned
Review: This books has errors, many of which have not been corrected at the Osborne web site. I agree with another reviewer - get the errata before you start and check the answers if something does not look right. Also, some of the wording in the text and examples was confusing (like the feeling of reading something with a triple negative in it). I guess it's a relatively ok kick-start for the exams but do not rely on it solely. I am getting the Sybex set in addition to this set. I am also considering on getting 3 month access to Database Domain documentation for Oracle and some self test practice exams(Whizlabs, Database Domain, Cert21 to name a few). Check out Certification Magazine online (www.....com) for a more extensive listing of possible vendors of practice exams. Hope this helps!
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