Rating: 
Summary: Good study guide, but be careful of missing info and errors
Review: This book is structured well for studying as it contains tips, two minute drills, and study questions both within a chapter and at the end of each chapter. The practice exams in the book and CD are good with only a few errors in them. Studying with this book will provide much of the information you need to pass the test, but it does not contain everything. Such as the use of any/all in single-row subqueries as one example. I did passed the test using this book alone (52/57), but I have a few years of SQL experience. While the CD's practice exams are good, I would avoid using the study sessions. There are some many errors in them as to be useless and misleading. I would also start studying with this book by first printing the Errata to make sure you have the latest corrections.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book to Learn From, but Some Errors!
Review: This book is well organized and easy to read/understand, a great book. However, there are quite a few typo's. The errors are easy obvious and easily verify-able. I haven't taken my OCP exam yet, but I definitely enjoyed my learning so far!
Rating: 
Summary: Any other review books out there??
Review: This book taught the basics. Weak on advanced queries compared to the exam. Bunch of errors too and the website doesn't help at all.
Rating:
Summary: Helpful book
Review: This book was definitely a help in preparing for the exam. It contains a lot of errors which will hopefully be corrected for another release. The exam questions, both in the book and on the CD, covered the material well. However, the OCP exam questions were very different and more complex in many cases. It often had 5 or 6 answers to chose from and sometimes required 2 or 3 answers. I passed the exam and give a lot of credit to this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not all its cut out to be
Review: This book will teach you some SQL but does not really prepare you for the text. It does cover the material needed, but it does not give weight to the material that will be covered.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, but some topics were not properly covered.
Review: This is a great book, I just passed the exam at my first time with score 82%. However, there are many errors in the exercises and some topics were not properly covered. The author should improve the sections about some operators (ALL, ANY and EXISTS) and single-row functions (NVL2 and DATETIME).
Rating: 
Summary: Stupid book
Review: This is one of the worst book I ever read. If you bought this book as your only reference, and you have no experience in SQL. I can tell you that you will be failed the exam for sure(100%). I felt being cheated by the "Oracle Press" Logo on this book. I am not sure why the author can survive with this book. The question and practical exam in this book is totally unrealistic(like kindergarten when comparing to questions in exam). If you go for the exam only with this book as your reference, you won't feel surprise that you have learnt nothing(well, say 30%, or max 50%) from this book while you are doing your exam. And now, I doubt with my english, really have no idea what's the meaning of the word, "Exam Guide"?? This book is kind of wasting your effort and time. In conclusion, if you don't want to waste your money and time, take any book other than this one, especially when the price of this book is not $1.
Rating:
Summary: Good exam reference
Review: This is the only book I used to prepare for the OCP 1Z0-007 exam. The Oracle published exam objectives were covered and the sample test questions on CD were good. Other than one or two SQL syntax surprises, I had no problems with the exam. This book may not be adequate if you are unfamiliar with databases, SQL, and programming as there is not alot of instructional material here. Good luck.
Rating:
Summary: Good exam reference
Review: This is the only book I used to prepare for the OCP 1Z0-007 exam. The Oracle published exam objectives were covered and the sample test questions on CD were good. Other than one or two SQL syntax surprises, I had no problems with the exam. This book may not be adequate if you are unfamiliar with databases, SQL, and programming as there is not alot of instructional material here. Good luck.
Rating:
Summary: Lacking Detail Where Its Needed...Everywhere!
Review: Well, I'm a newbie to Oracle. Not just someone who was working with it a little and decided to become an OCP, but someone who's never looked at Oracle except for advertisements. So, if you are someone like me, above average intelligence, a quick learner, analytical, synthesizes material and applies that to new concepts and problem solving, well, you'll be disappointed too. I've come to realize after now reading the third book in this OCP series, the fourth will be published March 21, 2002, that to prepare for the OCP DBA exams, you'll need to purchase at least another book for each of these books to get the detail you'll need to have a chance at passing the exams. It would help tremendously to get into a 9i class with an instructor who knows Oracle backwards and forwards. If your expectation is to pass the exam after reading this book, just take the CBTest included to discover how little detail is included in these texts. Yes, to pass the OCP exams, EVERYONE has told me I'll need months of experience working directly with Oracle 9i. Makes sense. But, if you rely only on these text books to work with Oracle, you're a much smarter person than me, and I'll be working for you someday...as will my classmates, and probably my instructor who doesn't like this series either. The texts have plenty of mistakes, and I've pointed out too many to my instructor to keep track any longer. Errata or not, some are obvious mistakes such as SQL missing to generate the reports used as examples. One section actually talked about 8i for a couple pages which demonstrated a rush job during proof reading. Anyway, IMHO, this series lacks too much to be considered the standard for OCP preperation. Best regards,
Mark
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