Saturday, November 21, 2015

A Tetrad of New Oracle Upgrade Practice Tests

In 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 more Oracle Certification Prep practice tests to provide options for all of the available Oracle DBA upgrade exams. The 1Z0-060 exam has been available since January of this year, but the other four have been notably absent.  That is no longer the case. As of this morning, practice tests have been added for the following exams:

  • 1Z0-034: Upgrade Oracle9i/10g OCA to Oracle Database 11g OCP
  • 1Z0-050: Oracle Database 11g: New Features for Administrators
  • 1Z0-055: Oracle Database 11g: New Features for 9i OCPs
  • 1Z0-067: Upgrade Oracle9i/10g/11g OCA to Oracle Database 12c OCP

The pricing model is the same as with all of my practice tests, with the initial take costing $14.50 and retakes within a 60 window costing $11.00. This is a better deal that you will find from any other vendor selling legitimate practice tests. The next lowest price would be $69.00 for 30-days of online access from Self Test Software. For that price, you can take a practice test from Oracle Certification prep six times. If you take a practice test more than three times in a thirty-day period -- the results will stop having any relevance regarding your knowledge of the material vs. your knowledge of the practice test. In addition, the 60-day window to qualify for the retake price means you have more time to work on fixing the weaknesses identified by the practice test.

As with the existing Oracle Certification Prep practice tests, I have included a practice test discount code in the OCPrep study guides for each exam. I tried to come up with a reasonable way to allow previous purchasers of my study guides to provide proof of purchase so I could send them the code. Ultimately, I failed to come up with anything that made sense -- so I decided to open it up a bit further by starting my first ever 'begging for likes' campaign. This article is on the Oracle Certification Prep blog, and has been re-posted via the Oracle Certification Prep Linked in page. I will track (separately) Google +1's in the blog and LinkedIn 'Likes' on the LI Company page. If I get ten +1's on the blog, I'll post the code for one of the tests, at 20 I'll post the second, at 30 the third, and at 40 the fourth.  Likewise, if the LinkedIn company page re-post hits 10, 20, 30, or 40 'Likes' I'll do the same. I will not combine the two (i.e. five 'Likes' and five +1's != 10).

If this begging campaign succeeds better than I have any reason to expect it to (say either 100 likes or 100 +1's), I'll post a code that will provide a discount off any of the Oracle Certification Prep practice tests (i.e. not just these four). There are ten total right now (including the four new ones) and I have about six more in the pipeline at the moment, so it would cover a lot of different tests.