Richard - My apologies that concern for passing the exam has caused some of us to exchange tips that you find offensive. And I truly admire those who have been able to just walk in the exams and pass. And I had similar gripes against the exams until I was felt the need to pass the exams. I understand that concerns like yours have caused Oracle to create the OCM. Have you taken a look at that?
Dennis Williams DBA, 80%OCP, 100% DBA Lifetouch, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 10:04 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L ----- Original Message ----- To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 8:39 AM > Dennis, > > Do you have good practice exams? > > I have found that the best preparation for the OCP exams are good practice exams. > > I have reached the point where I just skim through the material in the "whatever book you use" (probably only possible if you have some miles on the clock as a DBA) and then drive the in depth study from the practice exams. This way you are spending your time more focused and find out what exactly the OCP exam will expect from you vs. what some author would like to teach you or even what the correct answer is in reality. > > Also, many of these questions in the practice exams will appear in the actual OCP exam which builds your confidence while writing the actual exam. > It's comments such as these which are unfortunately all so common that really hits home what an laughable, sad and sorry affair the whole OCP program really is. I have this vision of people poring over example questions, desperately trying to memorise as many questions as possible, desperately trying to forget what "is correct is reality" for fear of not getting the required 65% multiple questions correct. Occasionally, they'll glance at the "Inside OCP" section of the Oracle Magazine and gain confidence in getting the jest of the "complex" concepts (and yes, further sample questions) it covers in each edition. And once they've passed and got that precious certificate, they're of course qualified to look after that banks enterprise database because they're Oracle approved Oracle Certified *Professionals*. And when the database runs like a dog, they'll open up their notebooks and decide is it: A) The Buffer Cache Hit Ratio is less than 90% B) The Library Cache Hit Ratio is less than 90% C) The DD Cache Hit Ratio is less than 90% D) The cleaning lady has accidentally pulled out the wrong plug E) Something else Good grief !! Now I too have spent many years teaching with Oracle Education and I'm Oracle 7, 8, 8i and 9i OCP (instructors were "obliged" to get certified) so I know a fair bit about the process. And I've seen students leave my classroom with 5 days Oracle experience behind them pass their OCP DBA Admin exam the following Tuesday (guess I was a good teacher :) Anyone see a problem ? At the time I kinda justified it as selling them "water" in that it doesn't really harm them, achieves nothing but at least they think it's doing them some good. Don't get me wrong, the training they received was excellent, it's the OCP bit that is fluff. But really, at the end of the day, having such an atrocious so called professional program ends up hurting the individual as they've paid a lot of money (for the exams) for very little benefit, it hurts organisations in that there's no *guarantee* of hiring anything closely resembling an Oracle Professional as the bar is so low it drags along the ground and really it ends up hurting Oracle Corp. as well. The *only* thing it does have going for it is that it motivates some people to getting training and investigating parts of Oracle they may otherwise not have much to do with. But I've always thought giving away free David Bowie Cds at training courses was a better way to go :) Richard -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Richard Foote INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
