Getting Oracle certifications is not easy. The material is difficult and extensive not matter how you approach it. The Sybex study guide does a good job of presenting the material in an organized manner.

I used this book to study for the OCA test for a month and thought I would pass with my SQL & limited Oracle experience. I did not pass the test because the test has changed to Senario Driven with Multiple Choice & Multiple answers. You would receive a long paragraph about a user's needs. You would need to select two answers out of five; 1 would be easy to pick, 2 would seem wrong and 2 would seem almost identical and right. That is where the test has gotten harder.

Where this book gives you the foundation of all the "What's" involved, the test needs the "Whys".

I recommend SELFTEST software Oracle pushes on thier site. I find the questions and style are very similar to what I had experienced.

I still recommend this book if would like to understand the concepts and have an oracle DB at your disposal
If you then need or want the cert buy the selftest software because I'm positive half of my questions came from that product. By spending your money on both of those products you will still make out very well because the Live course for this subject is around $2,500.

My experience with Oracle has been from the Healthcare IT environment where the database is already set up and just needs tuneing and Reports. If you are an Oracle Finanicials person you may only need the SelfTest software to practice from.

I just received the book and it looks like it has the content. But I must say that the paper stock used is appalling. I have seen toilet paper thicker than this paper and its already yellowing. You can see the print on the other side of the page! The print and screen shots are so small, maybe they are trying to save paper? I almost considered returning it, but it does have the content. I don't think after the exam you can use this book for a reference since it should have deteriorated by then.

this is the first book i read to prepare for my OCA exam. at first i was a bit overwhelmed because the chapters are quite long and the languages are not very easy to understand (sometimes i have to reread a sentence two or three times before it clicks). but i guess it was also because by then oracle was still rather new for me. if you are an experienced dba (maybe a 9i oca or ocp) then i guess this book alone should be enough to get you a 10g oca. but if you are new to oracle, i would suggest you to study John & Damir book first (OCP All-in-one exam prep guide), it's easier to absorb and the chapters are shorter (although there are more chapters). then, if you still have the time (and the money) get this book to wrap up your preparation for the oca. i'm sure you will pass the exam like i did.

I started learning with this book, but switched to Oracle Database 10g OCP Certification All-In-One Exam Guide (Oracle Database 10g Handbook) by John Watson and Damir Bersinic when it was released in September 2005.

Unfortunately, this book does not have a clear, memorable structure. Besides, the review questions are quite uncharacteristic. The other one I switched to proved much better.

This is the only book I used to prepare for the OCA exam. and I passed the exam

...and I'm a picky guy.

Seriously, this book has a clear concise language, is structured well, and has a wealth of examples, screenshots and very good diagrams.

What it luckily doesn't have: The occasional corny episodes other technical book authors include, like: In 1984 I had an incident when a customer stuck his finger in the floppy drive, and...

This is the only book I used to prepare for the OCA exam. and I passed the exam

...and I'm a picky guy.

Seriously, this book has a clear concise language, is structured well, and has a wealth of examples, screenshots and very good diagrams.

What it luckily doesn't have: The occasional corny episodes other technical book authors include, like: In 1984 I had an incident when a customer stuck his finger in the floppy drive, and...

Good description, but the chapter arrangement sometimes is a bit difficult to follow when trying to match with Oracle's exam topic. The CD (flash card, practice exam) would be very useful if it can be used on Unix/Linux too

I cleared my OCA exam with help of sybex and selftest software..could get 73/75 . I would recommend to go for selftest(65% of questions came from selftest in the actual exam) along with sybex..just reading sybex might not be of much help.

I just cleared my OCA exam with help of sybex and selftest software..could get 73/75 . I would recommend to go for selftest(65% of questions came from selftest in the actual exam) along with sybex..just reading sybex might not be of much help.
Note: any one intrested in purchasing selftestsoftware at reduced price can contact me at my email cutekrim@yahoo.com

The html/flash interface to the cdrom is lame. The "ebook" is a kludged up crippled drm fest such that the "pdf" is not viewable without installing crippleware and can't even be viewed WITH the crippleware unless it is accessed from a CDROM.

If I had the time, I could hack this stupid thing, but it's not worth the effort. I would like to be able to view it at work (NetBSD) or on my other computer (Linux) but can't. Simply can't, even if I tried to install the malware.

There are numerous broken links, the book is referred to by the wrong title.

How can I trust a study guide that is such junk in such obvious ways.

I hate this product. Don't buy this.

I WANT TO BE AN ORACLE 10g DBA, AND I`M PREPARING MY OCA EXAM, I DID NOT FINISH THE BOOK BUT I THINK THIS BOOK COVERS AL THE EXAM OBJETIVES,EASY TO UNDESRTAND AND WELL EXPLAINED, LIKE OTHER SYBEX BOOKS, ANOTHER IMPORTANT THING THAT I WANT TO SAY IF YOU WANT TO BE A DBA IS THAT MANY PEOPLE SAYS THAT ORACLE WILL REPLACE DBA`S BECAUSE OF THE AUTOMATIZATION TASKS, ORACLE WILL NOT REPLACE DBA`S ORACLE WANT TO DO THE TASKS EASIER FOR `DBA`S BUT NOT REPALCE THEM,SO DONT BE SCARE ABOUT THIS COMMENTS, THINK WHO WILL DO THE TABLES.
THIS BOOK IS AN EXELLENT BOOK TO PREPARE THIS EXAMEN, I RECCOMEND YOU TO STUDY ALL THE DAYS AND ALSO TO PRACTICE THE EXAMPLES IN THE ORACLE DATABASE (YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT FROM THE ORACLE SITE) GOOD LUCK!!