Rating: 
Summary: Lived up to my hopes
Review: I have 4 years of programming and 2 years of DBA experience. Other than doing the DBAI course everything I know is from on the job or from books. I just finished the first OCP exam (SQL PL/SQL). I passed it with a lot of room to spare. There were quite a few things that I learned from the book, since in the course of work one tends to focus on the job at hand, and not try to learn everything at once. The exam was much easier than I expected. I felt very well prepared. Although there are some mistakes in the book, they are easily discovered if you practice the examples while sitting at the computer. I hope that the rest of the material is up to par and that I'll be as well prepared for the other OCP exams.
Rating:
Summary: Good Preparation Material
Review: I have no hands on experience, however I try to take the test using this book. I decide to buy this book after I read all the reviewers comments. So these books by far are the most excellent reading material I have ever read. Forget Oracle Press, especially Jason S Couchman books... <- Good for further material but very bad for test. 1. For PL/SQL, is very good indeed, I only got 3 wrong answers for the test
2. For Architecture & Administration, Wonderful I got 3 wrong answers for the test 3. For Performance Tuning, Best, wonderful, excellent... etc I have ZERO wrong answers for the test
4. Backup & Recover, u ummm... I use exam cram's book as some reviewers recommend (5 wrong answers)
5. Network Administration, I haven't take the test but I plan to use exam cram's book as some reviewers recommend Together along with selftest preparation software, you should pass the tests along, believe me, I'm a living proof for 4 test at least hahahaha..... I'd also like to express my gratitude to SYBEX for these wonderful books. Also thanks for other good reviewers. So good luck every one.
Rating: 
Summary: It is an excellent kit.
Review: I have to thank the authors for those books. They are amazing books for the exams and for the real practice. The authors understand Oracle very well, that it is why they simplified it.
I realy enjoy reading the books. I have got the knowledge and the high score as well. Befor buying them I passed PL\SQL with score 84% and Backup & recovery 87%. once I bought the books for Oracle network and Admin. I got 93% for Network and 94% for Admin.
Rating:
Summary: Great book(s)!
Review: I haven't really tried using a whole lot of material in my exam preparations but this set of 3 books does the job. It is very well organized and written, has a lot of relevant practice tests and is easy to read. It follows the oracle syllabus topic by topic- you get nothing more and nothing less. Apart from helping prepare for the exam, these books help one understand the basic concepts of Oracle too. I have loaded the electornic versions of the book (CDs are included with the books) onto my laptop and find this material better than other oracle reference material I have. Until you find prep material that gives you all the questions that appear in the real test, you will not find better preparation material than this set of 3 books.
Rating:
Summary: The best book for oracle 8i certification
Review: I just read through this kit. This kit is very readable, much better than the Cram series and "Oracle8i Certified Professional DBA Certification Exam Guide". Oracle Press's book is very difficult to read and you have to print out the Networking part, which is not included in the book. However, for this kit, you can finish one chapter within half an hour and catch all ideas. I am sure you can pass the certification exam if you prepare the exams using this kit. As for the Cram, the topics are somewhat obsolete and do not match oracle 8i certification's requirement. For example, Cram does not talk about the Oracle Expert in detail, which is required for oracle 8i exam. Moreover, the practice questions are more similar to the exact test than Cram and Oracle Press's book. I strongly recommend this kit. Do not waste your money on other preparation books for Oracle 8i certification, only this kit is enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Not useful at all
Review: I just returned from taking the Performance tuning exam and failed miserably, using this as the primary source of studying. An hour before taking the exam, I scored 95% on the exams in the book (each chap and final overall exam), meaning I thought I digested all of the information from the book. I think there were about 5 or 6 questions (out of 57) from the Oracle exam that I could attribute to this book, and another 5 or so that I could deduce from the information contained in the book. I'm not sure if the Oracle exam has changed drastically from when this was first published, but this book, at least for the Performance tuning was a waste of time. In addition, the CD that comes with the book and supposed to contain practice exams DID NOT WORK. It only had 1 exam, and you're supposed to be able to specify a number of questions for exam, and no matter the number of questions, it repeated the first question over and over
Rating: 
Summary: Some problems with these books
Review: I purchased this set based on the other reviews. So far I've taken and passed one of the OCP certification tests. The book gave me quite a bit of material and sample tests but I still ran into a lot of stuff on the actual test not covered in the text. The biggest problem I have is with the Performance Tuning and Network Administration book. First, I get random errors when I try to use the tests on CD. I'll be part way through the test and it will hang up. If I get back in it usually works. I had no trouble with one of the other CD's. The other problem is that the book refers to chapter 20 in several places only there is no Chapter 20 in my copy. I e-mailed Sybex with this information and they sent me a replacement book for free. But guess what...no Chapter 20 there either. The only saving grace is that there is a Chapter 20 on the CD version of the book. One thing I liked, though, is the set of flash cards I can load onto my palm pilot. That's been handy for when I have a few minutes to review.
Rating:
Summary: Great study books for Oracle 8i OCP exams!
Review: I used the Sybex books to study for the PL/SQL and Performance tuning exams. Like another reviewer, I found that the CD for Performance Tuning did not work - it only pointed to one exam, but with a little hacking effort, I was able to look at the code for the exam questions. However, not having a working CD was a pain when I was in exam cram mode! The subject matter for both PL/SQL and Performance Tuning is broken into logical units & the questions after each chapter are helpful study guides. I like this series much better than Couchman's book or the Exam Cram series. I took all my exams in a 2 month time frame & passed each exam the 1st time.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for OCP exams
Review: I was roaming on this site , & finally I purchased this set before I started my exams.
I finished my OCP DBA exams in 10 weeks.Writters have done excellent job for explanation ,very easy & fun to learn.
Allthough I am not impressed by Books questions/Answers. I would advice others,In addition to reading this Set
1.Get somehow Oracle 8i OCP Training material, Because exam question language matches with that Oracle training material.( questions are selected 100% from training material) 2.Go to selftestsoftware.com, It has given me good confidence.
Rating:
Summary: Good book to start with.
Review: I'm still running to get my dba but with this book i can keep up with my target as i can go on fast without forgetting objectives.
A good one......
The assessments after every chapter are good teasers.
pretty soon i'll be clearing my dba, i'm confident of that!!!
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