Certification FAQ
1. What Official Oracle Certification tracks are available for DBA ?
Oracle Corporation offers the following Oracle Certification Tracks for Oracle DBA
1.1. Oracle Certified Associate (OCA)
This is an entry level certification track and enables one to act as a junior team member working with database administrators or application developers.
1.2. Oracle Certified Professional (OCP)
This is a middle level certification track an OCP candidates have proven skills for managing a large scale database or developing robust applications that are deployed enterprise-wide.
1.3. Oracle Certified Master (OCM)
The highest level credential you can earn in the Oracle Certification Program. These people are senior level members of IT departments and are responsible for handling mission critical database systems and applications.
2. Name the companies who provide Oracle Certification
The following companies provide Oracle Certification:
2.1. Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation’s certification program is widely known, most popular and officially recognized certification track available worldwide.
2.2.Brainbench Inc. (formerly Tekmetrics)
Brainbench offers Oracle E-certifications. Their certifications are not officially recognized by Oracle Corporation.
2.3. Test.com Inc.
Test.com provides certifications for some Oracle tests. However, the certifications are not officially recognized by Oracle Corporation.
3. Is any training is required before one can take an exam?
Oracle 9i onwards, Oracle Corporation changed the requirements of official training classes for some certification tracks.
3.1. OCP – To complete OCP certification, you need to attend one hands-on training class from Oracle University. See Oracle’s web site for a list of courses.
3.2 OCM – To complete OCM, you need to attend two advanced training classes at Oracle University. See Oracle’s website for a list of courses.
3.3 OCA – Generally no courses required. It might be a good idea to attend some relevant courses before taking an exam.
4. Where can one take these exams?
Since September 2009, Oracle exams are conducted at authorized Pearson VUE testing centers worldwide. Using their on-line Test Center Locator , you can select the test center closest to you.
5. What is the format of the certification exams?
All questions are either multiple choices, fill in the missing word or match these against those.
6. How are exams scored?
Previously all exams were scored on a 200-800 scale, with 620 as the passing score for all exams. With this scaling system, the number of points each question was worth varied between exams and candidates could not compare their scores across exams.
Oracle has decided to abandon the scaled scores and instead report only the candidates’ raw scores.
7. Can one skip some questions and visit later?
Yes, you may mark the questions that you feel difficult to answer and review them at the end of the exam. When you clicked the submit button, the exam tool will triggers a message that you have marked questions and allow you to jump to them. Both marked and unmarked questions will be scored when finally submitting the exam.
8. Is there any negative marking?
NO, the Oracle OCP exams are not scored negatively. This means that you can safely guess answers as no points will be deducted for incorrect answers.
If you complete the test before the time, then It is best to check again ALL questions before completing the exam. If you are running short on time, just click any answer and move on. This will at least keep door open to score more.
9. Is there any specific order to attend the exams?
No. There is no any specific order to appear the exams, you can write any exam in any order. For example, you could even appear Admin II, Admin I, and SQL in that order if you wanted. They don’t follow on one after another, and you get your certificate when you pass all required exams.
10.What happens when one fails an exam?
If one fails a test then he/she can re-appear the same exam after a minimum of 14 days. But you cannot appear a particular test more than three times in one year of time.
After each exam you will receive some diagnostic feedback with the test score report indicating the areas that need further study.
Failing one exam doesn’t affect any other exams though. If you fail Admin I you can still write Admin II any time you want for example.
11. Where can one prepare and get sample questions for the Oracle exams?
Visit the Oracle Corporation’s official link http://www.oracle.com/education/certification and read the list of objectives per exam. Set your path and decide the exam you want to appear.Find out the exam topics for those exams and prepare each topic very well. Not only read practice, implement and practice and practice.
Some Companies like Self Test Software, Transcender and TestKing provides course for each exams, you can bye this test modules and practice of your own . If you are not willing to buy of these course,download the free sample questions available at their site and practice.
If you can afford then, bye the test suite designed by the following company
- Practice tests from Self Test Software
- Practice tests from Transcender
- Practice tests from uCertify
- Practice tests from PrepLogic
Oracle Corporation offers FREE assessment test on their official Web site at http://www.oracle.com/education/certification (only selected exams). You can download and practice of your own.
