User Guides Guide to Getting Oracle Certified ( OCA ) in 45 days

I had recently got my oracle certification, OCA Developer track and now preparing for OCP Developer track. The reason I’m writing this is that i never found enough information for my preparation and neither did I find any clear cut answers on googling :(

So here we go :)

Certification Path

In order to get OCA developer you need to clear two set of exams.

Set I

1Z0-001 (Introduction to Oracle: SQL and PL/SQL)

1Z0-007 (Introduction to Oracle9i SQL)

1Z0-047 (Oracle Database SQL Expert)

1Z0-051 (Oracle Database 11g: SQL Fundamentals I)

From the above 4 exams you can choose to give any one of these exams. I had chosen "1Z0-007 (Introduction to Oracle9i SQL)" as it was the most relevant for my future track and this one is non-proctored exam so that means you can sit at home and give this exam ( I know what you

are thinking :p).

Set II

1Z0-147 (Program with PL/SQL)

Now lets start with detailed description of each course.

1Z0-007 (Introduction to Oracle9i SQL)

This exam covers very basic SQL commands and you are basically tested on whether you can create tables, retrieve data from them and manipulate the data according to your needs. If you have done Btech then this shouldn't be a problem for you. But I would advise you to go through the books anyways because there are some details that we were not taught in college

(in ours at least :( ).

Btw please throw your favorite IVAN BAYROSS in the dustbin.



Resources for passing this exam:


Always go through the assessment that is given at the end of the chapter. You will get many questions based on those lines. You should also go through the Practice Test listed at oracle site Practice Test

You can register online on Prometric Online Testing - Home or you can go to any of the prometric center near your place and give the exam. It should cost you around 4.7k bux for this exam.

Strategy:

Since this exam doesn’t have any hardcore questions, you will have to face a lot of long questions. Don’t even bother reading those in start, just mark them and skip to next short question. You can easily finish the short questions within the first 30 mins. So now you have 90 minutes to solve those long questions. For the long questions, please read the options before you start reading the question because sometimes you will be able to figure out the solution by reading just the first 3-4 lines.

Level of Difficulty: Easy - Moderate ( avg marks : 85- 95 % )

1Z0-147 (Program with PL/SQL)

This exam is not as easy as 1Z0-007 and you can't pass this one without reading thoroughly, it covers packages, procedure, functions, triggers, LOBs, etc. I would suggest that you go through the book. Also please don't neglect the Oracle docs, they are the ultimate thing ( they are damn boring) and no book can beat it when it comes to the details.

Resources for passing this exam:
You should also go through the Practice Test listed at oracle site

Program with PL/SQL

This is a proctored exam so you would have to go to one of the prometric center or Oracle university for the exam and the cost for this one is 6.7k

Strategy:

This exam unlike the 1Z0-007 paper won't be having huge questions ( at max there will be 4-5), please don't rush through the paper. See the question, analyze and then select the answer. You will have enough time to answer all the questions, so don't panic. This test requires a deep understanding of how things work, so don't ignore the minor details while reading the book ( like where is the status of the procedures stored, where are the dependencies stored). There will be some very stupid questions with obvious answers, don't think too much about those ( these will be just after very tough questions to confuse you).

Level of Difficulty: Moderate ( avg marks : 78 - 85 % )

Download oracle 10g and practice on it because

1) The more you practice the easier it becomes for you to remember the syntax.

2) You will make a lot of stupid mistakes ( :p ), and you will learn things which even books cant teach.

3) You will get to see the results of your statements and see where you have messed up and why.

One last thing, i know there are dumps out there, but please don't rely on those for Sun or Oracle certifications coz the answers are not accurate and even if you get through oracle guys can cancel your certification if they find out that you have used dumps.

You can download Oracle 10g for free by registering with OTN ( oracle technology network) and then download the 2 zip files of size 650 mb and 270 mb. After this download the Oralce 10g Client ( size: 470mb). While installing remember the password that you give :).

If you guys have not got any prior experience in DBMS then i would suggest picking up a RDBMS book and reading it side by side with the books suggested. It wont help in clearing your certification but it will give you the basics of database design and all.

Please do study the following topics at least( if you haven't had exposure to RDBMS yet)

-> Codds Rule

-> Normalization

If you are wondering is it possible in 45 days, then yes it is, I did this while working. I opted not to go for Aptech, NIIT, etc because it was too expensive for my 20k/month salary :( and you can basically do it yourself :)

Link to my Blog entry : Guide to Getting Oracle Certified ( OCA ) in 45 days Oracle Resource
 
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nice article dude!!

any way to do it in a bit lesser time? say 21 days? :p

any dumps available similar to the ones java guys have and get magical figures in scjp ? :)
 
If you have already worked on SQL, i don't think 21 days should be a problem. Because then you can just read the book instead of trying out each and every example..

Dumps for oracle .. yeah you have those but they are not good enuf, unlike scjp if you rely on the dumps then you will be in for a big surprise. :)
 
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