How to Prepare for an Exam

Knowing how to prepare for an exam such as this is half the battle.

One of the best ways to prepare, and I can't stress this enough, is to get a copy of the database and play with it. You can download the database, although it is in several rather large files, which take considerable time even over a dedicated high-speed connection, or you can buy trial soft-ware from Oracle Store (http://oraclestore.oracle.com/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?a=b) and for less than $100 get full versions delivered to your door.

Install it, break it, fix it, and learn. It is useful to not just memorize information to answer the questions because often the questions are asked in such a way (or the answers are posed in such a way) as to make it exceptionally tricky to answer without having hands-on experience. And the experience of using the commands and actually working with the database and its associated commands and tools will be beneficial long after you have cleared all the exams.

Documentation

Get the Oracle documentation. These manuals, although not always an easy or entertaining read, are often the best resource to use when preparing for not only your tests but also for your life as a database administrator.

http://tahiti.oracle.com and http://otn.oracle.com/documentation/index. html are prime sources for the manuals for any given release of the software. The manuals are available in either PDF format, or as a web page in HTML format.

Tahiti maintains only database software, application server documentation, and Collaboration suite documentation on its site, whereas all the Oracle products' documentation, back several releases (including the database back through Oracle 7.3), is available through Oracle Technology Network (OTN). OTN requires you to sign up for a free membership to access its information (and many of the manuals through Tahiti are linked from the OTN site, so it is a worthwhile investment of 10 minutes), but that free membership also entitles you to a 20% discount on testing fees for the certification tests and access to a wealth of informative articles and access to downloadable software.

Metalink

Another resource at your disposal, if you are fortunate enough to be in an organization that has an Oracle support contract, is Metalink (http://metalink.oracle.com). On Metalink you can access technical documents and information on different aspects of database administration (architecture, administration, security, storage, and corruption just to name a few). It is an invaluable resource when you are learning about the Oracle database and is even more useful when you are troubleshooting issues when you are working as a DBA.

The manuals are also available on CD when you buy the software, even a trial set of the software, from Oracle Store.

Exam Prep Materials

There are many commercially available certification preparation materials. Many offer study guides (sometimes free, usually fee based) and test banks of questions similar to those found on the test, and often scaled-down versions of their test banks free of charge for download or online access. A simple online search will yield several dozen such organizations, including the following that I have used:

• http://www.cramsession.com/

• http://www.examnotes.net

• http://www.whizlabs.com/ocp/oracle-dba.html

• http://www.selftestsoftware.com/dept.asp?dept%5Fid=6000

  This is the software recommended on the Oracle Certification web site.

• http://www.oracle.com/education/certification/index.html?content.html

  This offers a free demo version as well as the purchasable version.

Be careful what company you choose. Make sure that you are going to get what you have ordered and paid for. There are companies that charge you for software, offering lofty promises, and never deliver. As with anything, make sure that you are buying from a reputable company.

The Exam Cram 2 Book

By investing in this book, you have accessed another means by which you can quickly and efficiently work toward passing your certification. The Exam Cram and the Exam Cram 2 series have been a great help to countless certification candidates, not only in certification preparation but also as a concise reference to maintain in your library. This is a book that you will reach for to answer nagging questions that you know but can't quickly call to memory.

Classroom Training

If you have the money to invest, I highly recommend taking Oracle University offered courses, not simply for the information necessary for passing the exams but also for the experience. Although not everyone has $2000 to $3000 to invest in a single weeklong class, there is a lot to be learned in the classes. You learn not only from the instructors but also from others in the class and from the experience of really being able to break someone else's database in a controlled setting. You often don't know what you don't know until you are faced with either a question that has been asked by someone else in a class, or with a new situation with the database that you had never considered before.