Born to Thrive

2 weeks ago I took the exam - I was going to wait but the following week I was starting new job, so I didn't feel like taking 2 hours off from work right away to take the exam. And I think the decision was good as I had passed the exam and I was pretty busy during my first days at the new place. As far as the exam, the only thing that surprised me was the number of questions testing your theoretical knowledge about Oracle database thereby requiring remembering and and understanding definitions items covered in the exam objectives. However, most questions tested understanding syntax of Oracle statements and using those statements to meet the requirements as described in the questions, but there was also quite a few questions that tested understanding required and optional parameters or arguments in the syntax, so there is a lot of things that you need to memorize or just remember from working with Oracle - fortunately most of those questions are not too hard. You have 120 minutes to answer 70 questions, so it's not that bad. However, almost always there is an exhibit with some database diagram. One thing I noticed is that only few questions really required that diagram and a lot of questions used the same one. Don't even try to study it as it may contain more information like tables than you need to answer the question. So my score was 98%, which means I failed on one question. As far as learning materials, I would definitely recommend Oracle-Database-Expert-Exam-Guide. Of course I also used other materials like Oracle-Database-Complete-Reference and of course SQL Language Reference, but the main source of information was still SQL Certified Expert Exam Guide. It covers all topics and contains a lot of definitions and explanations that are required to pass the test. Moreover, you have 2 full practice exam that have some questions with answers that are not in the book, which encourages you to learn from other sources than the book like Oracle Documentation. I would say that if you learn only from the book and fully understand the queries, syntax and definitions in the book, and you're going to read the questions very carefully on the exam, you will pass. Maybe not with the high score, but you should definitely score more than 66%.  As far as certificate or Success Kit Status as it is named on certview.oracle.com site, it looks like it will be shipped within 30 days but I didn't received it yet, so I will edit this post to show how it looks like. So after having passed Oracle exam, time to take SQL Server 2008 Database Development (70-433) Exam next  before starting taking exams from .NET 4.0.