Testing Situation


When you arrive at the Sylvan Prometric Testing Center where you have scheduled your test, you will need to sign in with the testing coordinator. Be sure to have two forms of identification with you, at least one of which is a photo ID.

After you have signed in, the coordinator has verified your identity, and your specific time for testing has arrived, you will be asked to leave any books, bags, or other items brought with you in a designated area. You will then be escorted to a closed room, often with closed circuit TV camerasnot that this adds to the stress of the testing situation or anything.

In the room there will be, typically, from one to a dozen computers, separated from each other by dividers designed not as a sound barrier, but rather as a means to keep a tester at one workstation from viewing the happenings at another tester's workstation.

You will either be furnished with a pen or pencil and a blank sheet of paper that you will be required to turn back in at the end of the testing session or with a dry erase marker and a laminated piece of paper also to be turned in post test. On this sheet, you can write down as much information as you can recall from your study sessions, as much of the memorized information as you can, as many notes as you can remember or as will fit on the page. You can refer to this page at any time during the test, so make the best use of it you can. You can also make notes during the test if one question reminds you of something that might be a help on another question.

At least one wall of this room will consist of a plate glass window through which testing coordinators can monitor the testers to ensure that no one is talking to each other in the testing room. This is also the purpose of the closed circuit TV cameras.

Your testing coordinator will launch your preloaded exam, and you will be permitted to start the exam as soon as you are seated at the workstation. You will sign in with your testing ID number, and after affirming that you are ready, the test will begin. You will have 90 minutes from this point in which to complete the test. The test itself will provide you with a countdown timer so that you know how much time you have remaining for the exam and will also tell you on which question number you currently are working. There will typically be several unscored randomly selected questions on each exam, so you are likely to have more than 60 questions on the test that you take. These unscored questions are designed to let Oracle determine good questions for future tests. You will have no way to determine which questions will be scored and which will be unscored, so do your best on all questions.

Remember that the passing score varies with each exam. The passing score for test number 1Z0-031 is 44 out of 60 scored, or 73%.


Question Handling

All the Oracle certification exams are computer generated and are, typically, multiple choice, although I have seen a few completion answers. Although many people look forward to multiple choice, or multiple guess as we used to call them, these questions are constructed to fully assess your knowledge of the facts as well as to evaluate different circumstances.

Read over the test once, completely, answering only those questions whose right answer screams at you. After this initial pass through the test, you will know what the questions are and which questions you will have the most trouble with. On the next pass, or the next couple of passes, you can tackle those questions that make you stop and think, leaving the really difficult ones to the very end. This tactic will be particularly helpful in knowing exactly how many difficult questions you have left after you answered the ones whose answers were apparent to you. This way you can better get a feel for how you are doing on the test as a whole and make better decisions on how much time to dedicate to those really difficult questions.

Oracle has thought through the test design process (timed multiple choice), and the testing software is designed in such a way as to facilitate the timed multiple choice approach. At the bottom of every question is a check box next to the word "Mark." Checking this box allows you to quickly return to the marked question later.

Make good use of your ability to mark questions that you want to quickly and easily return to later. Don't mark every question. There will be many questions that you will be able to answer quickly with an assurance of the answer. Don't second guess yourself on these; going back and rethinking them will often result in your doubting your first instincts and changing the answers, only to realize after the test that you probably really didn't want to make that change. Not only will you likely change at least one answer that was right to something that was wrong, but you also will be wasting precious time. You are only allotted a finite amount of time, and you can't afford to waste that time going back over questions that you were nearly certain about the first time. You may find yourself at the end of the test with questions left and no more time.

Make sure that you read every word of every question completely. Do not get impatient and simply skim the question. You are likely to miss an important piece of information that could mean the difference between a right and a wrong answer.

The exams are designed in such a way as to challenge you with most questions having one or two obviously wrong answers and at least two that are nearly alike, and you have to read carefully to make the appropriate choice.

I cannot stress this enough. Read carefully and deliberately to avoid needless mistakes.


Understanding the Question

It is important that you not only read the questions carefully, but also that you make sure that you understand what the questions are really asking. It sometimes helps to draw out the question on the paper you are given, or to rewrite the answers in ways that you may remember from this book. The following list of suggestions may be helpful when you are working on understanding the questions that you are presented with.

As you read each question, try to rephrase that question in your own words. If you can do this, you will likely find choosing the right answer much easier.

After you have read the question the first time, reread every word again to make sure that you really understand what it is asking. This is particularly true if you have gone back to this question after having read the rest of the questions in the test. It is often the case that rereading the question after having had your attention on other questions makes the answer more obvious.

If you have returned to the same question more than a couple of times, make sure that you understand what it is about the question you don't understand. Rearranging the information so that you have narrowed down what you are missing may make the question make more sense this time.

If you find that you are approaching the end of your allotted time (keep an eye on that timer as you go) and you still have a few questions that you have left unanswered, it is better to go guess at an answer than to leave the question blank. They aren't going to not grade an unanswered question wrong (blank is equally as wrong as wrong is), and you have a statistical chance at guessing correctly.

Remember, with these questions as with any multiple-choice question, there are often one or two questions that you can eliminate immediately as being obviously incorrect. This process of elimination should leave you with the correct answer or answers, and maybe one or two other answers, depending on the question format, from which to make your ultimate choice. Eliminate these and concentrate on those that are left.

Obviously, wrong answers will likely have commands, tables, or views that are not only incorrect but also nonexistent.

Personal Readiness

Before you take this exam, before you take any of the Oracle exams, or in fact before you take any exam in life, it is important that you are confident that you are ready for the exam.

Before you read this book, take the self-assessment test included with this book to find out how much you already know. Compare your score on the self-assessment test with the score required for passing the certification test to determine how ready you really are for the test. Taking this test also allows you to determine those places where you are lacking in your knowledge and where you can best apply your efforts in studying for the real thing.

Take the test periodically during your studying to make sure that you are grasping the concepts in such a way that will allow you to answer the questions on the real test to the best of your ability and to give you the assurance that you are making the progress that you want to be making.

After you have read through the Exam Cram book and the supplementary materials at the end of every chapter and have taken the practice tests, you will have a fairly good idea of when you will be ready to take the official exam. Although you could practice until you have just achieved a passing score on the practice tests (73% to 75%), I would highly recommend (the voice of experience, here) waiting until you have achieved scores of at least 80% to 85% on the practice tests to make sure that you have a comfort factor to fall back on in the testing situation. Your stress level will be higher in the real test than it is sitting in an easy chair in the comfort of your home.

Physical Readiness

Physical readiness is every bit as important as mental readiness, perhaps more so. Make sure that you get enough sleep the night before your exam. You will be mentally sharper if you have had sufficient rest, and you will be sure that you won't fall asleep during the exam. Cramming all night the night before, trying to memorize as much information as you can at the last minute will do you much less good than one or two more hours of sleep will.

Don't go to the test center hungry; eat before you go. It would be counterproductive to overeat (it will take blood away from your brain and divert it to your stomach), but don't go with your stomach growling; it will distract you and any other testers in the room. Take with you a drink of water if it is permitted in your testing center. (The one where I take my tests provides paper cups and filtered water for exam takers; adequate hydration will make you more alert, as well.) Finally, overstudying can also be detrimental to your testing results. People often do better if they study until they feel comfortable and then take some time away from studying before the exam to take a walk, sit in the park, or just relax. Taking time to relax will likely lower your stress level, allow the knowledge that you have already gained to sink into your subconscious, and allow you to do better on the exam.

Now, let's look at the best way to use this book. The following section gives you some advice on how I would use this book.



    Oracle 9i Fundamentals I Exam Cram 2
    Oracle 9i Fundamentals I Exam Cram 2
    ISBN: 0789732653
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2004
    Pages: 244
    Authors: April Wells

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