Customer Reviews

MCDBA SQL Server 2000 All-in-One Exam Guide (Book/CD Set)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Dave Perkovich is not a MSSQL DBA and he doesn't have a clue. The book is full of errors. For example: The book states several times that the timestamp field is a datetime field. This is not true. I started marking the errors in the book. More than a third of the pages are marked. The test software is full of bugs. Don't buy this book. If you bought this book, try to get your money back.

I bought this book because I couldn't find any others in my local bookstores. When I 'browsed' it, it seemed clear enough so I took a chance. Now that I've read all but the last few chapters (and done all the exercises, etc), I feel I would buy it again and, indeed, recommend it with a small qualification or two.

Positives:

First, it is not the bottom of the heap - far from it. I've read much poorer quality technical books before. I rated it at 3 stars but, if it hadn't claimed to be a test prep book, I would have rated it at 4 stars.

Second, it is great for new people. So what if it misses a few of the finer points (even necessary ones?) Within two days of starting with it I was using DTS and replication and getting XML responses back through IIS. I found it very clear to get these services going.

Third, I don't mind pictures and this book has quite a few. Nothing like a picture to show you what screen you *should* be looking at.

Fourth, other than minor typos, the author is literate. Better than many other books out there.

Negatives:

First, this is *not* a test prep book. I've taken a number of cert tests (dozens) and I don't feel like I'm even close to ready for testing. However, I do feel a lot more confident about understanding the questions. A lot more.

Second, there are some awful mistakes in some of the exercises. All of them are correctable and you have to correct them but it makes you suspicious whenever you start an exercise. For me, that isn't a bad thing. For a complete newbie, it could be a bit distressing.

Third, the test banks don't work well. This doesn't make it a '1' in my opinion. I've not seen a test bank in a book that is representative of the real test. However, it does degrade my overall score for the book a little. Like I said when I started, if the book hadn't advertised it was a test prep book, I would have given it a '4'.

The content is reasonable. There are a large number of step-by-step processess with screen shots, which I consider filler.

The self-test software on the CD is unusable. It has blank questions. There are also multiple-choice questions that should use checkboxes, but use radio buttons, resulting in only being able to choose one answer. If you happen to choose the first right answer, the answer is scored as correct even though you didn't answer the others.

I'd like to get my money back for this book and buy a better one.

I hope this review prevents others from falling into the same trap as me.

Good luck with your certifications!

In line with the other reviews, this book does not cover the material with enough depth to pass the exams. The topics are treated superficially and the exam software that comes on the CD is buggy. The review questions and exams in the book are not nearly as hard as the real exams. I passed 229 based on my experience as database designer. I flunked 228. To be honest, in the foreword the book states that you need to use the SQL books online as well to prepare for the exams. However on the cover it says all in one is all you need, which is definitely not true. Purchasing this book and studying it is a waiste of time and money.

This book will not prepare you to pass the SQL 200 #70-228 exam. The questions on that exam are much more detailed (scenario-based) than what is offered through the book. You'll think you're cruising right along when you score 90% overall on the practice exams...only to find that the software is telling you that you scored 15 out of 12, or 140% on some section. Additionally, the software will only allow you to select one answer, and will tell you that only one answer is correct, when in fact, there are two correct answers....I can't have any faith in the quality of the book if the exam software is flat out wrong.

This book is the least informative reference book I have ever purchased. The book will not help you pass the MCDBA exams (70-228 and 70-229), nor is it a good reference book for your job. First of all, there are many aspects of T*SQL that are missing. For example, how can one write a book about the Select statement without such basic topics as "Having" and "Group By"? Secondly, the information is frequently wrong. Not misinterpreted, but plainly wrong (i.e., SQL*Server will reject your syntax). Finally, the questions in the "sample" tests have NO relationship to the actual exams. I cannot think of a book that has provided less true information and more misinformation than this one. If I could rate this book with negative stars, I would do so.

I wish I had read the other reviews prior to reading this book, because they are right. This book had me thinking I was ready for the exam, when I was actually far from it.

To be fair, this is a decent "Intro to SQL", with plenty of hands on exercises. You do need to be able to trouble shoot however, because some of the examples won't work as written.

I feel I'm better off having read this book than I was before I read it, but sad to say, I failed the 70-228 exam. And that's after getting a 98% on the "Final Exam" included with the book.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to find another exam prep book and keep working with SQL. It least it's good to know the exam isn't a cake-walk, and certifications can still mean something.

The book itself is full of glaringly inaccurate information (i.e. it states the master database is copied as a template for new databases... when it's actually the model database). And the software on the CD is completely useless. The testing software only has 150 questions in it (75 for each test, and there is no difference between the "Practice" and "final" tests) and contrary to what is stated on the back cover, there is no adaptive testing engine (I perused the Jet database where the test data is stored). Also, the majority of the answers in the test are incorrect, and the explanations given for what they say is the correct answer does not even match the question. Don't waste your money buying this book... it is 100% useless. I even went to the publisher's web site to complain, and they don't even list the book on their own website any more. Guess they figured out how bad it is, yet they still keep selling it. I even wrote to them to see if maybe they had updated the bad software... no response from their "customer service", so I called them and they would not even talk to me about the book because "we don't provide support for discontinued titles". Yet they keep right on selling this "discontinued title".

Why didn't I read the reviews before buying it? Because this is the book that the store had, and I wanted to start studying. Ugh. Yet one more reason to buy books at Amazon :)

Anyway, the book is full of glaring errors, the questions/answers at the end of each chapter are often mismatched, and you learn very little by reading it. You might even be dumber after reading it. As other reviewers have said: stay away!

1. The software DOES NOT WORK. The answers are often obviously wrong, the hints are not correlated to the questions, it appears the various parts of the exam were written by someone who lacked the knowledge to synchronize them (in a relational database book this is inexcusable). The practice tests have a hard time-out, and when you exit the test it locks-up your machine with an invisible pop-up window.

2. The text itself is so unbelievably brief, and so lacking in concrete examples, as to be unusable as either a tutorial or a reference guide. No trace of documentation on any but one feature of DBCC is included; Query Analyzer docs are woefully brief.

3. This book will help you FAIL the MCDBA exams. Beyond that, as the other reviewers attest, the content is so off the mark that if you buy it, you will wish you hadn't.

4. "No Stars" is not one of the valid selections. That's my rating.