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Blog postBefore getting into the meat of this post... I should note that this blog is not generally about spacecraft. Normally it contains posts related to Oracle certification. As it happens, I am also very interested in space, and the current drive for reusable space launch systems. In this instance, my blog is just a reasonably convenient place to post an analysis I created about the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan and the SpaceX Falcon 9. If you are a space enthusiast... don't bother bookmar
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Blog postOn January 31st, I announced the release of two flash card mobile apps for the Oracle SQL Fundamentals certification exams 1Z0-051 and 1Z0-061. In the roughly six weeks since that date, I have been spending my nights and weekends chained to my laptop while I work to create more flash cards. As of this evening, I have completed mobile flashcard apps for eleven Oracle certification exams, including:
1Z0-034 -- Upgrade Oracle9i/10g OCA to Oracle Database 11g OCP
1Z0-050 -- Oracle -
Blog postIn June of last year, I provided a set of six practice quizzes to GoCertify that corresponded to the Oracle Certification Prep practice tests I had available at the time. When I released eight more practice tests in November of last year, GoCertify asked if I would create quizzes for them as well. It took me a while, but I was able to squeeze that in among my other projects. At the time of this blog post, GoCertify has published the first two in their free quiz section:
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Blog postFour years ago I published the first of the Oracle Certification Prep study guides -- largely because I felt that Oracle certification candidates did not have enough options in their choice of study materials. There is a tiny fraction of the myriad options that are available for certification exams from Cisco, CompTIA, or Microsoft.
Last year I started making practice tests available for the same reason. Prior to this, there were only two vendors of practice tests that offer a high- -
Blog postIn late November, I published a blog post announcing the release of four new Oracle Certification Prep practice tests for the Oracle 11g and 12c upgrade exams: 1Z0-050, 1Z0-055, 1Z0-034, and 1Z0-067. While I was focused on test generation, I decided to continue with development of practice tests to complement existing Oracle Certification Prep study guides.
I completed the process earlier this week and published the new practice tests to the OCPrep website. Four new practice -
Blog postIn October, Oracle announced they were offering exam vouchers at a 35% discount for their DBA upgrade exams through March 1, 2016. The discounted voucher offer covers exams 1Z0-060, 1Z0-067, 1Z0-034, 1Z0-050, and 1Z0-055. On November second, numerous Oracle professionals with Oracle 7.3, Oracle 8/8i, and Oracle9i Database credentials had their credentials inactivated until (and unless) they recertify in either 11g or 12c.
These two events spurred me to focus my efforts on creating m -
Blog postThis afternoon, a reader sent me a thank you note for creating my study guide for the 1Z0-060 exam (Upgrade to Oracle Database 12c). I sincerely appreciate the sentiment. I am always pleased when someone finds one of my guides useful. However, the most memorable portion of his message was the first sentence:
"I have way too many certifications already but taking the 12c OCP upgrade shortly."
On reading that, my initial thought was to wonder exactly -
Blog postThe Oracle certification program and I go back a long way. I have been taking exams from Oracle fairly steadily since the program first started in 1998. In the past three years, I have noticed a marked increase in the difficulty level of their exams. Anyone who follows my exam reviews on GoCertify might have noticed this. One of the last exams I took before this trend started was the 11g upgrade: 1Z0-050. In my GoCertify review for that exam I stated:
"I have never found upgrad -
Blog postRecently I received the following question from one of my readers about their results on an Oracle certification exam:
"There was not a single question on the exam that I did not know, but I still got only 54 percent. How did this happen?"
I spend a lot of time answering questions on various Oracle forums from certification candidates. One of my foremost personal rules is to avoid sounding like a jerk in my answer. However, another of my primary rules is to be -
Blog postI have provided quizzes to GoCertify for their Oracle Practice Quiz page that correspond to each of the six exams for which Oracle Certification Practice tests currently exist. At five questions apiece, they are certainly short... but again, free. Free is always good.
The first of the six was made available yesterday for the 1Z0-047: Oracle Database SQL Expert exam. GoCertify will be releasing a new quiz each week for the remaining five exams (not necessarily in the below -
Blog postOver the past year, I have been bouncing between numerous different projects: study guides, practice tests, articles, and maintaining oraclecertificationprep.com. Every time Oracle opens an interesting new beta test, I tend to spend at least some time mapping out a study guide for it so that I can determine how much of it can be completed based on prior research. Unfortunately, while I have been starting lots of study guides, I haven't completed any since early 2014. Going in to this past w
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Blog postIt has been almost four months since the initial release of the Oracle Certification Prep practice tests. I have been keeping a close eye on the results throughout this period. The test engine being used has some excellent analytical reporting that has been very helpful in locating questions that test takers consistently get wrong (or right). This capability has proved invaluable in helping to ensure that test questions are in the 'Goldilocks' zone by being neither too hard nor too easy.
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Blog postI was browsing the Oracle Certification group on LinkedIn this evening, and a post caught my eye. The (slightly paraphrased) question was:
"Is it enough to earn the Associate-level PL/SQL certification or should you go on to earn the Professional-level certification. I have heard that the OCP credential is recommended for Database Administrators but that it is much less important for PL/SQL Developers."
After reading the question, I had a mental image of -
Blog postIt has been about six weeks since Oracle Certification Practice Tests were made available to the public. The initial response to the exams has been greater than I anticipated. That is gratifying for me, but it also good news to certification candidates who may have been considering taking one or more of the tests. The per-test costs that I pay to the site hosting the tests drop with increased volume. In addition, my pricing goal for the tests is not to charge 'all that the market will bear'. Ins
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Blog postAs I announced earlier this month, Oracle Certification Prep is expanding into providing practice tests for a number of Oracle certification exams. The release date ran about ten days beyond what I had hoped to hit when I made that post. There are just too few hours in the day and the proofing and error checking for practice exams was considerably more time-consuming than projected.
That said -- they are out now and available from the 'Practice Tests' link on the Oracle Certificatio -
Blog postOne of the most common questions that I see asked on various forums about Oracle certification exams is where to find practice questions. Likewise, one of the most common complaints about my Oracle Certification prep study guides is that they do not contain any. In fact, I created a post in this blog a few months back on that topic: End-of-Chapter Questions and Oracle Certification Preparation. As indicated at that time, the guides will never contain practice questions because I do not think th
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Blog postI have been trying unsuccessfully for some time to get my Oracle Certification Prep site listed as being safe on the CertGuard website. However, I have never succeeded in getting a response back from them. Until recently I simply left it at that. However, a couple of days ago I did some more searching and found several signs that the site has been stagnant since around 2011.
I asked a colleague who writes about certifications across multiple vendors, Ed Tittle, if he kn -
Blog postThe first of the new expert exams that I wrote about back in May has just entered beta. 1Z1-064: Oracle Database 12c: Performance Management and Tuning is the 12c update to the legacy exam 1Z0-054: Oracle Database 11g: Performance Tuning. The beta is currently scheduled to run until late February. Betas are often extended if not enough candidates take the exam by the original deadline to provide a good statistical sample. However, I expect this exam will be popular enough that the exa
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Blog postWhen I found out about the changes being made to the 1Z0-047 exam (and reported on it in this blog), I pulled up the master document for my SQL Expert study guide and outlined the changes that needed to be made in order for it to be comprehensive enough for the new exam. It really should not have taken me this long to complete the revisions, but it did. I had originally hoped to get an updated book into print before the revised topics even made it to production. That plan went out the window tw
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Blog postI was involved in a discussion on LinkedIn about the proper timing for an Oracle PL/SQL developer to take the 1Z0-146: Oracle Database 11g: Advanced PL/SQL exam. One of the posters was indicating that while it was appropriate for people new to PL/SQL to study for and take the earlier exam: 1Z0-144: Oracle Database 11g: Program with PL/SQL, they should wait until they have some job experience before taking the 146 exam to earn the Oracle Advanced PL/SQL Developer Certified Professional
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Blog postA little less than two weeks from the date I'm writing this post, the topics list for the SQL Expert exam, 1Z0-047, will include a number of new subject areas. Simultaneously, two of the legacy topics will be removed, but their impact to test-takers is minimal. I wrote an article discussing the changes in more detail that was just published at CertMag here.
If you have been preparing for this exam and have purchased any existing study materials such as the Oracle Press OCA Orac -
Blog postHistorically, Oracle Certified Associates in the Administration track for one release of the database have had only two options for earning the Oracle Certified Professional designation in a later release:Complete the OCP credential in the release they hold the OCA in. Then take one or more upgrade exams required to bump their OCP to a more current release.Start from (almost) scratch to earn the OCA and then the OCP in the later release.Both options require a minimum of two exams. For people th
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Blog postAn Oracle exam candidate sent me the following question recently after reading my study guide for the 1Z0-117: Oracle Database 11g Release 2: SQL Tuning exam:
"One thing which I felt is that there should be mock Q&A's or Quiz to test the knowledge gained after finishing each chapter. Having these gives confidence and a practice before going for the exam."
This is a subject that I have a strong opinion about. I thought it deserved a detailed response r -
Blog postA handful of certification exams for Oracle 12c have been made available since the database was released to production last year. The first two exams for the 12c database administration track, 1Z0-061 and 1Z0-062, plus the upgrade exam,1Z0-060, were the first to be released and are available for exam takers now.
The first of the "Essentials" exams targeted at employees of Oracle Partner Network companies followed soon after. 1Z0-497: Oracle Database 1 -
Blog postEarly-adopter candidates who are preparing for the 1Z0-062 exam -- Oracle Database 12c: Installation and Administration need to be aware that the topics list displayed on the Oracle University website changed on April 11th of this year. There were a total of four changes made to the list. Two existing topics were removed and two new topics were added.Under the Configuring the Oracle Network Environment section, the "Understand database resident connection pooling" topic was
Titles By Matthew Morris
Study Guide for 1Z0-144: Oracle Database 11g: Program with PL/SQL (Oracle Certification Prep)
Jul 8, 2012
$9.99
Other Formats:
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Study Guide for 1Z0-063: Oracle Database 12c: Advanced Administration: Oracle Certification Prep
Jun 1, 2015
$5.27
Other Formats:
Paperback
Study Guide for 1Z0-460: Oracle Linux 6 Implementation Essentials (Oracle Certification Prep)
Oct 3, 2013
$9.99
Other Formats:
Paperback
$9.99
Study Guide for 1Z0-062: Oracle Database 12c: Installation and Administration: Oracle Certification Prep
Mar 9, 2014
$9.99
Other Formats:
Paperback
Study Guide for 1Z0-053: Oracle Database 11g: Administration II (Oracle Certification Prep)
Jan 25, 2013
$9.99
Other Formats:
Paperback
Study Guide for 1Z0-034: Upgrade Oracle9i/10g OCA to Oracle Database 11g OCP: Oracle Certification Prep
Jun 27, 2014
$9.99
Other Formats:
Paperback
