PRO's:
- Detailed guide covering material on OCA and OCP exams
- OCA is Part 1, OCP is Part 2 of book

CON's:
- Author is VERY long-winded.
- Not enough use of diagrams
- Not updated for Oracle 10g Release 2 (current exam topic)

If you like long, boring discussions on a topic so much that by the end of the section you forgot what the main point was, then this book is for you! However, if you like short and straight to the point, you won't get that here.

The author tends to ramble on forever on each topic. It makes reading not only boring, but confusing. Use of a few simple diagrams like those found in the Sybex books would have gone a long way. It would have clarified the point without lenghty paragraphs. I found that the author tends to repeat himself often, too.

The main problem with this style of writing is that you will miss cruicial details because they're burried deep in a sea of text. Also, you CANNOT quickly skim through the book for a brief refresher.

I would have rather seen the book written such that the main points were stated first, followed by supporting detail and a diagram or two. So, you would be able to quickly skim through the first sentence of each paragraph or so to get the gist without deep reading.

It's painful to read through this book!

Giving it 3 stars because as painful as it is to read through, I am learning from it and it will help me pass the exam. But it could have been MUCH better.

I recently took the Oracle 10g Administration Workshop class and purchased this book in preparation for the OCA exam. While the book itself did a great job of covering some of the basic, under-the-hood topics you need to know (not just for the test, but to be a decent DBA), it fell short in a few areas.

1. The screen shots and examples in the book aren't consistent with the latest versions of Oracle Enterprise Manager/Database Control. The version I downloaded and installed for Windows just a few weeks ago was occasionally different than the images I saw in the examples. Sometimes, the differences were minor (just a slight variation on the name of a link, for instance), but other times they were a little more severe (columns that don't appear in the version I downloaded, or functionality that seems to have been moved).

2. The last chapter in Part 1 of the book covers a topic that's an objective for the OCP test, not the OCA one (at least according to the Oracle site as of this morning). Not a big deal and it's good info to know, but if you're studying specifically for the exam you might not want to spend time on info that isn't directly relevant.

3. I could live with 1 and 2 above, but this is by far the worst part... The companion CD includes practice tests for the OCA and OCP exams, one of the main reasons I bought this book. Before I cracked open the book, I took the test labeled "OCA" to get a sort of baseline read on my current preparedness. Having taken the instructor-lead course Oracle recommends for preparation, I thought I should do reasonably well.

I scored a 23%. To make matters worse, the questions themselves were baffling, at times covering subjects I hadn't even heard of. I was completely disheartened. Did I sleep through my $3000 class, or was I just that dumb (please don't answer that)?

A couple of days later, I figured it out: the software was bunk. The tests were mislabeled (that is, the one labeled "OCA" was actually the practice test for the more advanced "OCP" certification exam and vice versa).

Furthermore, many of the questions themselves have typos. I found a few, for instance, that don't actually state the question, going right from the background info to the possible answers. You'd get a "question" that looked like this:

Jill has four bananas. Mike has three apples.

A) Monkey.
B) Six.
C) Spaghetti.
D) None of the above.

Or, in at least one case, a question that told you what the actual answer was before giving you the choices:

What's 4+2?

B is the correct answer. 4+2 equals 6.

A) 3
B) 6
C) 18
D) Pi

One last beef with the included practice tests... After completing the test, you're given the option of reading a review of the questions you missed. Great feature that all practice test software should give you. While reviewing your misses, though, there's an utterly useless "References" portion that always just refers you back to the text. Doesn't tell you which page to look at for more info, or even which chapter. Just ever-so-helpfully tells you that there's more info on that question SOMEWHERE in the book. Thanks for nothing.


Clearly, more of my problems were with the companion CD than with the book itself. If I reviewed only the text on its own merits, I'd probably give it 4 stars instead of just three. Likewise, the CD would only get 2 on its own.

Again, though, it's imperative that you don't rely solely on this text for the exam (or for learning the software itself, for that matter). Download it and install it, get familiar with EM as it is now. Look on the Oracle site to find out whether or not the exam topics have changed. And, if you can afford it (or sweet talk your employer into it), take an instructor-lead class. It's a requirement for the OCP cert, anyway.

Oh, and in case you wanted to know... I took the test yesterday and did, indeed, pass.

I passed OCA exam thanks to this book and with a little help of SelfTest software.
Very good writing. Authors definitely know the subject practically.
It is a good reading on Oracle RDBMS internals. And more entertaining than the Oracle Concepts Guide.
Again - their writing style is excellent, they do not over-complicate things and manage to explain complicated subjects simply and clearly.
I wish they wrote something on efficient oracle design :).

As i saw, before buying this book, it's an excellent and complete reading for those interested in acomplish the certification. Don't forget to do all of the exercises!

Good reading

This book is very good not just for clearing OCP but also reference for novice as well as experienced DBAs . The authors have covered the exam syllabus very concisely without leaving anything yet keeping the volume to a minimum .
However for the part 2 exam , one might have to read oracle manuals thoroughly especially for resource management and scheduler concepts .
The pratice test CD that comes with the book is very helpful.

The book should be already arrived but today(12 march 2007) I'm still waiting for it. note that the period foreseen for arrival was 16-feb 2-march.
Could you kindly help?

thanks,
Donatella

It is an excellent opportunity to get ready for the exam. Even if you are not familiar with the RDBMS concepts, this book will help you to get ready for your OCP. A lot of examples and exercises in a book easy to read is complemented with a set of self-test exams in the CD ROM making this the complete tool to get your OCP.

It is an excellent opportunity to get ready for the exam. Even if you are not familiar with the RDBMS concepts, this book will help you to get ready for your OCP. A lot of examples and exercises in a book easy to read is complemented with a set of self-test exams in the CD ROM making this the complete tool to get your OCP.

I am currently enrolled in CCCCD for Oracle Database Management. This book is very thorough and helpful in understanding what I need to know to reach my goal of certification. It is easy to read and understand.

I bought this book in addition to the Sybex guide. At this time I have taken only the first exam, and was happy with the instruction I received from this book. I passed the test on the first try despite my somewhat rusty Oracle skills.

This book is extremely well organized and readable. The chapters are short enough to fully digest at one sitting. The information is complete, though I would say that it may not quite be as "test-specific" as the Sybex book is. However, unlike the Sybex book, there are great chapter summaries here which are useful when going back over things in preparation for the test.

My suggestion, if you can afford it, would be to buy both books and forego any other study aids or classes you might be considering. There is some overlap, but each book does touch on some things that the other one misses and some topics are covered more in depth by either book.

I would rate this one slightly superior, mainly due to its readability and lack of errors and typos.

i buy this book together with sybex's book and have passed the oca exam with 87% score (less than what i expected though). i found this book easier to read and understand compared to sybex's book, and the many-but-short chapters works better for me. if you could only choose one book to pass the 1Z0-042 exam then this is definitely the best choice. but don't forget to practise what you read (although the book makes it looks so simple), you'll remember more by trying each exercise in this book.

added 5 feb 2007 :
i have just passed my ocp exam last month, still using this book and the ocp 10g certification kits. the good thing about this book is it resembles the training materials from oracle admin II a lot, because it is published by oracle press. but just as the title says, this is the best book to pass the exam only, you need other references and lots of practices if you really want to master the oracle database technology well. however it is still a good idea to get the oca/ocp first to get you fire up (and increase your value for employers), and then continue to explore the beauties of oracle database in your daily works. as before, if you could only get one book for your ocp exam, then get this book.

p.s. be aware that oracle globalization features (NLS) is now in the OCA exam instead of OCP, so the chapter structure for this book (and also sybex's book) need to be updated

i buy this book together with sybex's book and have passed the oca exam with 87% score (less than what i expected though). i found this book easier to read and understand compared to sybex's book, and the many-but-short chapters works better for me. if you could only choose one book to pass the 1Z0-042 exam then this is definitely the best choice. but don't forget to practise what you read (although the book makes it looks so simple), you'll remember more by trying each exercise in this book.

I used this book to (sucessfully) prepare for the OCA exam. It is well structured and important points for the exam are specially highlighted. This makes the content memorable and easy to learn.

The review questions are pretty good. I recommend getting the question set of www.selftestsoftware.com, too. They are not exactly like in the exam (like TestKing) but representative.

I used this book and the SYBEX OCA preparation (OCA: Oracle 10g Administration I Study Guide (1Z0-042) by Chip Dawes) and found this one clearly superior.

Still, it is not perfect: There was some exam-relevant details missing, e.g. for data pump. So check with the selftest questions and get the missing information from the Oracle manuals on the net.

I m really thankful to amazon.com to supply book, which is really good for exam preparation


Regards
Ranjana