Falied in A&A exam. Pls guide me.

[quester]

Hi All,

I would like to share this with you. I had prepared well for first two exams of OCP DBA 8i. I scored 50/57 in the first paper(SQL & PL/SQL) and cleared successfully. I scored only 34/64 in the second. I had taken several practice exams before the test and had scored very well (above 90%) in all the practice exams. But I felt this real time A&A test was really too tough.

I have a few questions:

1)Is it always tough or only sometimes. Does it depend on our luck, the kind of paper we get?

1)Since I scored well in the first, does my second paper become intentinally very tough? Are there such hidden formulae to see that we fail atleast once?

I am baffled, coz the test was unbelivably tough to crack.

Please advise me.

Regards.

[quester]

BTW I practiced exams from Jason S. Couchman's Oracle Press released book for Oracle 8i OCP DBA and several other practice exams across the web.

The basic problem was, of the 64 questions, 24 questions were of the type which had more than one correct answer to choose (Check Boxes), which I felt was too much. Is it a strandard that there are 24 questions everytime like this where you'll have to choose as many answers as appropriate, OR is it just my bad luck?

[grjohnson]

quester, I wasn't entirely suprised by you not passing the exam, especially when I read your mulitplexing question a couple of days ago. ALTHOUGH, you obviously have an interest in the Oracle DBA principles, and all I can do it suggest you work though the material and take more time to understand the concepts. You may also want to purchase additional texts, the SYBEX collection for instance, just to help your understanding in concepts were the Couchman book either "misses" or is not clear. (Not bagging Couchmen here, people, this works both ways).

Personally, I feel the exams get easier as the time of study increases.. my two lowest score exams were SQL and A&A. (I passed 8i A&A after only studing 8 documentation... hence the closeness of my pass). But, I spent the least amount of time studying for these exams cause I thought they'd be the easiest.

So, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start studying again. Gather as many resources you can, and this time next month (or next, if you take longer to study), I think you'll find you'll pass.

Good luck...

[quester]

Originally posted by grjohnson
quester, I wasn't entirely suprised by you not passing the exam, especially when I read your mulitplexing question a couple of days ago. Good luck...

You are right. I lack a world of knowledge when it comes to fudamentals. I will take this in the right spirits and improvise myself. Thanks again.

[hrishy]

Hi Quester

Yep the kind of questions you posted..(even made me think ).But there is no need to loose heart dude.The exams are not that tough provided you study and do a bit fo Practice.I suggest you pick the book from sybex and re-read and this time try to understand.Maybe you could also try STS and remember when you are practicing if you do not know the answer dont guess(yes in the real exam you can guess) but while practicing follow my strategy.

All the very best....;-D

regards
Hrishy

[Tarry]

You have the right spirit!
For next time, take a small computer and do all the stuff that the books tell you on the box!
You'll learn a great deal. A&A particularly is the toughest cookie of the 5 exams but i'd say if you understand the fundamentals you've got a better chance to hit the exams.
Try to buy the Sybex book, i found it good but real the oracle manuals as well. cross check the veracity of either on your box, and get your answers right.
and post regularly things that you don't /can't make work. Serach for solutions on the dbasupport and try again on the box.
Remember, know your stuff. The worse will be when you've passed thru the exams and the interview and on the job and doubt the basic fundamental, that'll be genant!!

No problems if you didn't do well ,next time slam dunk it!!!

Cheers!!

Tarry

[quester]

Thanks for all the support and encouragement;

[ehaskins]

Quaster,

Make sure you take a good look at the exam scroe sheet that you failed with. Which areas did you score poorly on. I often see that when people fail this exam, one of the areas they scored poorly on was that of Tablespace Management. Oracle typically tests very stronglyin this particular area (usually 7 questions for this section).

I always mention to my students to make sure you know EVERYTHING about tablespaces...it will certainly increase your chances for passing.

[yoda]

"A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough."
-- Hoshang N. Akhtar

[stecal]

And if all else fails, you can become a disciple of Yoda. Or kill yourself. Either way.