Customer Reviews

Solaris 7 System Administrator Exam Cram (Exam: 310-009, 310-010)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I passed exam one of two, but this book is not all I used. The book is pretty thorough, but you need 2 other things: real world practice of the concepts in the book (I just used and x86 box), AND exam prep software. I got mine from Mindtopia, there might be others. Hard test. Worth it.

I passed both exams using only this book! My two tests included 81+94 questions and this book has answers on all of them except probably one or two. Sun exams have low passing score ( 70-75% ) and I think it's possible to answer about 80% using only this book for preparation. But if you want to answer >90% it could be very difficult task because some questions are very tricky (like command flags, CDE filenames) and you have to have extremely strong real work background to answer them.

Moral is simple. If you want just pass exams - this book is right for you!

I bought two Solaris study guides - This one and The Solaris Admin. Certification Training Guides by Calkins. With BOTH books, I passed the exams.

The editorial review is quite accurate for this book- it's an EXAM CRAM. I wish the editorial review was there before I bought it. Because I only have a few years of Solaris experience, the information it assumed I knew, I did not know. Lots of technical jargon that I wonder if the author even knew.

Only half of the 506 pgs seem to be actual study material, the rest is info on where to get more information and questions on the chapters. Why not put the questions on CD-ROM and save some trees? (The learnsolaris .com website the author recommended was a good supplement).

I think this book is priced right for the material, but don't use this guide as your only reference before taking the exam. Because I don't have 12 yrs of experience, I like the format of Calkins' Study guides better. They provide more detail and background info to help me learn the topics (and the tests were on CD-ROM!).

I just passed Part I using this book and the Sun SA-237 book that is used during Sun's training. I read the Exam Cram book first, read through it again with the accompaning chapters from the SA-237 book (cover-to-cover twice), read the Exam Cram book for a fourth time, then took the full scale sample test (This process of reading and re-reading took about 1 - 1 1/2 months). In addition to all the book work, I had a SPARCstation to work the commands on. The SA-237 book offers a lot more detail (which I feel is needed if you really want to master and KNOW Solaris). Real world experience or access to a SPARC box is a must to get the commands rooted into your head. After all the preparation, the REAL test is still tricky and I passed it with an 83%. I was even dreaming commands in my sleep two nights before the test. There are a few grammatical errors throughout the book and mistakes to some of the sample test answers, but all in all it's a good concise prep tool of the commands and concepts from the big SA-237 book from Sun. Now onto Part II!

The Sun Certified System Admin exam is divided into two parts. The first exam is fairly simple, assuming you put in a good effort into studying. This book does its job in teaching the reader the most essential exam material topics, such as command syntax and the situations in which you would have to use the commands appropriately. I can honestly say that the first part of this book is all you need to pass the first exam. However, for the second part of the exam, this book does not go beyond the basics. The second exam is much more trickier and it goes beyond testing you on mere commands. The heart and soul of the second exam consists of questions in which you have to pick all possible answers from the multiple choices. How you answer these questions basically decides if you pass or fail. This book in no way prepares you for these questions. In fact, there are very few books outside the books published by Sun Educational Services that would help you in answering these questions. About the only way you can know the answer to many of the Part II questions is through real world job experience or simply through lucky guessing. This book only covers the very basics of the topics in the Part II exam, such as Custom Jumpstart, NIS, automount, mounting and sharing resources, etc. Some of the necessary Part II exam material, such as knowing how to read a rules file, is not covered sufficiently in this book. If you want to become certified, you need to purchase additional material and consult with real world system admins to accomplish this, especially when Part II is concerned. Otherwise than this, this book is a very handy summary of all relevant exam material. Good for Part I, very much lacking for Part II.

Well, I just passed the first exam (got an 89!), thanks in no small part to this book. As other reviewers have said, this book will not teach you Solaris. It is intended for Solaris users and admins who need to focus their learning to pass the exams. It is exactly what it says it is, a tool for studying. I found everything about this book to be helpful in passing the exam. I also bought the New Riders book by Calkins and was rather disappointed by its meandering style, many errors, and lack of focus on one exam vs. another. If you already have experience with Sun, then just download the exam objectives from Sun's web site and buy this book.

This book is a great test prep, but is no substitute for experience with the real thing. However, this book worked great for me because it helped familiarize me with the parts of the test that I consider "obscure." Don't expect this book to magically make you pass the test, no book can do that.

This book helped me prepare and Pass both Exam in one hour . The topics discussed and presented is exactly what is required . This can even be used as a first level of reference for a majority of Solaris System Administration tasks .

I used this book to pass both my exams recently. With real world experience and using this book as a reference for what is covered on the exam you should not have much problem passing the tests. The questions at the end of each chapter are thorough enough to show you weather or not you know the material.

This book mixed with hands on experience (Intel or Sparc) will prepare you for the exams so you can pass.

This is the most efficient book to study to prepare for exam. I also used the Calkins books, and I recommend using multiple sources to prepare. One flaw is that some chapters were put in Part 2 that fall under the Part 1 exam: I believe the CDE, device administration, and basic networking chapters were miscategorized. The Solaris exam may be becoming a standard UNIX exam, and you do not have to have Solaris background if you have UNIX system administration or system programming background. However, if you do not have a strong background going in, these exams requires a lot of studying.