Home » Other » Training & Certification » Oracle 12C 1z0-061 certification
| Oracle 12C 1z0-061 certification [message #642773] |
Fri, 18 September 2015 12:51  |
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dkennedy76
Messages: 3
Registered: September 2015
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Junior Member |
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I found this exam extremely difficult and I failed.
I have been working in databases (Sybase for a few years and now Oracle for about eight). I have been writing sql queries, procedures, and packages for several years and I currently develop for a 24/7 database that's pretty involved, so I felt comfortable in a lot of areas, but knew that there were areas that required more study because I don't use them.
I bought the Oracle Press book OCA Oracle Database 12c SQL Fundamentals Exam Guide (1Z0-061) by Roopesh Ramklass. After studying the book and taking the provided test exam a few times, I felt like I was prepared enough to get the 65%. I was not. I got 61%.
Some of the questions were, to me, ridiculous, and in some cases very time-consuming. This led to me feeling like I couldn't spend too much time on any one question. 75 questions in 120 minutes is not that much time with the way this is written. And I'm usually a good test-taker and fairly fast. The things I felt were a little ridiculous and time-consuming were the ones that required me to spend too much time studying 5 possible sql answers and trying to match two that provide the same results. These were very tough to get through in an appropriate amount of time. Were there some short answer questions? Yes. But some were confusing as well. I don't know how long this exam has been out, but a couple I would argue were incorrect. They would ask for three items out of five and I could swear that 4 were true.
So what's the point? I have four points.
1. Study closely and pay attention to all the query questions that deal with finding two queries that do the same thing, or picking one that matches all the conditions. I thought I did that, but that's not how it turned out. Many of these are very tricky.
2. The book was not enough preparation and now that I have taken the test, I would not recommend it.
3. The exam is very long and I hope that Oracle gets enough feedback to understand that and also verifies all the questions again since I can think of two that might have been wrong.
4. I knew all of the sql that was displayed in this exam and yet I still got some wrong. That is very disconcerting since I don't know how to study for it. I guess I was not good at reading the problems or interpreting the question. Anyway, pay very close attention to the questions and the syntax differences.
[Updated on: Fri, 18 September 2015 12:52] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Oracle 12C 1z0-061 certification [message #642774 is a reply to message #642773] |
Fri, 18 September 2015 13:52  |
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matthewmorris68
Messages: 258
Registered: May 2012
Location: Orlando, FL
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Senior Member |
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1Z0-061 is one of the more commonly taken Oracle certification exams and has been out for IIRC about 2 years. The chances that there are any problems with incorrect answers is slim, and the chances that there are many is essentially zero.
I have used a number of Oracle Press books to prepare for certification exams over the years (although not this one). The content of them is almost invariably excellent... with a caveat about the end-of-chapter questions and practice exams. None of the included tests that I have used has ever felt anything like the real exam or contained mostly comparable questions and answers. They can be useful as a measure of reading comprehension (i.e. did you really read 'Chapter 4' or were you essentially dozing and turning the pages). However, in my opinion they are not a good indicator of whether someone is prepared for the real exam.
Because the SQL Fundamentals exams are non-proctored exams generally taken online, the questions are geared towards ones that cannot be answered by having a set of notes handy, or a book, or Google. The time frame is likewise tight specifically to prevent exam takers from being able to research questions as they answer them.
The questions with answers that are all SQL statements can indeed be some of the most time-consuming to answer. This is particularly true in the SQL Expert exam (1Z0-047) where the SQL is often a good bit longer than the SQL Fundamentals exams. Normally, however, the SQL statements are all almost identical. If you read each SQL statement individually, parse it in your head, and then move to the next one and do the same thing, you could spend 5-10 minutes on a single question. Instead scan through the clauses of the SQL statements rapidly to find the differences. Then evaluate the difference to eliminate answers An example sequence of checks might be:
All of the SELECT clauses are the same... check.
All of the WHERE clauses are the same... check.
The only difference appears to be the JOINs in the FROM clause.
The JOIN syntax in A is illegal -- ignore it.
The JOIN in B looks good.
The JOIN in C is using the wrong columns -- ignore it.
The JOIN in D looks good.
The JOIN in E has the wrong operator -- ignore it.
The correct answers are B and D.
The above sequence will be much faster than trying to evaluate the entirety of each SQL statement independently.
Beyond that, I don't know enough about the sections you missed (or why) to feel confident in suggesting a method to use in preparing further for the exam. The description of your background would have lead me to believe (prior to this post) that it plus Roopesh's book would have been sufficient to pass the exam. It does sound as if you felt rushed for time, which can often lead to poor decisions (i.e. you knew the correct answer, but picked the wrong one because you were in a hurry). My suspicion (based on admittedly insufficient information) is that your primary problem was testing technique/skill rather than knowledge. If you answer questions fast enough to stay ahead of the game time-wise, you tend to make better choices throughout the exam.
If that's the case, the normal solution would be to make use of an exam simulator. Take that suggestion with a grain of salt (or an entire salt shaker), since I am the creator of practice tests for Oracle exams on my Oracle Certification Prep site. However, other legitimate practice test vendors include Transcender and Self Test Software. Almost any other 'practice Test' vendor is actually providing illegal brain dumps, though, so I do not recommend them. The one exception is uCertify. It is generally acccepted that their practice tests are not brain dumps. However, I have heard many reports that they have severe quality control issues -- with typos, incorrect answers, and similar problems.
At 61%, you were only three questions from a passing score. However, from your background, I think you're capable to scoring considerably higher on this exam than the minimum.
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| Re: Oracle 12C 1z0-061 certification [message #642848 is a reply to message #642773] |
Mon, 21 September 2015 11:54 |
John Watson
Messages: 8963
Registered: January 2010
Location: Global Village
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Senior Member |
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Dennis, first let me do the moderator bit:
Welcome to the forum. Please read our OraFAQ Forum Guide and How to use [code] tags and make your code easier to read
Second, I'm going to split this off into its own topic.
Third, I just want to take you up on this,Quote:2. The book was not enough preparation and now that I have taken the test, I would not recommend it. I can't speak for my buddy Roopesh, and this book was all his own work. But we wrote the 11.x version together, and I wouldn't think the approach has changed that much. The Oracle Press idea is not to produce a pure exam-crammer, but rather to teach the subject matter. The idea is that if you have learnt to program in Oracle SQL, then you will pass the exam. However, we never say that the book is any sort of guarantee. I would hope that every examined topic is covered (though we are sometimes caught out by late or undocumented changes in exam content) but the dummy quesions are definitely not intended to simulate the real thing they are just an attempt to let you check whether you are OK with the subject matter likely to be tested.
Is the book really good enough by itself? Possibly not. But is it better than any alternative? Well, perhaps. It realy does sound as though you should have passed, though.
Next time!
--
John Watson
Oracle Certified Master DBA
http://skillbuilders.com
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| Re: Oracle 12C 1z0-061 certification [message #642849 is a reply to message #642842] |
Mon, 21 September 2015 12:03 |
John Watson
Messages: 8963
Registered: January 2010
Location: Global Village
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Senior Member |
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Well, Matthew, we have totally opposed exam techniques. I like to do them all in one go. Recently I did the 12c RAC beta and the 12c Data Guard beta in one day, 6 hours with just a 30 min break in the middle. I find that I can really get stuck into it with a long period of no interruption. If I were thirty years younger, I would probably say that I get "in the zone". Of course, I don't know if I passed them.
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