OCA 8 Book: Online Material and Practice Exams now available

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If you’re one of the individuals who already purchased the e-book of our OCA 8 Study Guide, you might have noticed the online materials weren’t up yet. They went up today.

If you’ve ordered a printed book, we are getting close. Amazon.com is currently predicting delivery between January 27th and February 25th. We will post again on this blog as soon as we hear of an actual US delivery. First printed book delivery was reported on January 31st.

We are also doing a book promotion at CodeRanch next week. Ask us a question and be entered to win a copy of the book.

sybex

What do the online materials include?

  1. 3 mock/practice exams (60 questions each)
  2. 2 sets of flashcards
  3. A searchable glossary
  4. Electronic versions of the assessment test and end of chapter review questions from the book

How do I register for access?

Step 1 – buy the book. Once you have an electronic copy or printed copy of the book in hand, it is easy. When going to the Sybex test bank site, you are asked to supply/create an access code. Creating one is easy. You are asked for your name and email. You are also asked to answer a question that is easy if you have the book. (Like “what is the answer to question 3 in chapter 2” or “fill in the blank from the text of figure 2.4”). Then the access code is emailed to you. It came immediately when I tested it.

With the access code, you go back to the test bank site and create an account. You get to use your email as username and the password of your choice making it easy to remember. Then you are in!

How is the test engine?

This is a new test engine from Wiley. Older books came with a CD that had a Flash based system for questions. While I’m sure this is very nice for non-coding exams, the old engine only showed a handful of lines of code on screen which was bad for programming exams. I’m SO glad they improved this before our book came out.

The new test engine is beautiful. It shows roughly as much code as the real exam. It has a timer so you know how long you have taken. (It counts up instead of down like the real exam does, but you know how long the real exam gives you so this is fine. It’s actually a good thing since Oracle likes to change the length of time allowed for the exam.) The engine lets you bookmark questions for review; as does the real exam. The whole system is intuitive and nice to use.

Author advice

  1. The engine lets you choose how many questions you want in the practice exam. I recommend taking them with the 60 questions each that are indented. A lot of thought went into which questions appear together on a practice exam and you’ll get the most realistic experience.
  2. The flashcards allow you to choose sequential or random order. I recommend random order. Just like you’d shuffle your physical flashcards to make sure you remember best.

37 thoughts on “OCA 8 Book: Online Material and Practice Exams now available”

  1. I bought OCA-Study Guide from Amazon about a month ago and I can’t find the access code, could you please help me?
    Ordered on June 26, 2015 Order# 002-1954393-1009822

  2. Per the blog post “Creating one is easy. You are asked for your name and email. You are also asked to answer a question that is easy if you have the book. “

  3. I had a terrible experience taking the online Sybex Practice Exam 1. After finishing the exam, the site promptly timed out my session and booted me before I could review many of my results. So I basically wasted 90 minutes taking a 60 question practice exam, only to not learn anything about which ones I got wrong or why. The session timeout needs to be increased by a couple hours.

  4. David: I’m sorry to hear that happened. Did you report it to Sybex on their site so the vendor that makes the software can look at it? Preferably with the browser name/version you are using.

  5. Site has been down since yesterday. I am having difficulty accessing the test banks. Kindly Assist.

  7. There’s a obvious failure in the Sybex exam for Chapter 2 Question 18. The exam expects answer A while the explanation explains correctly why it has to be answer B

  9. Is the Sybex test bank website down? I’ve been using it the past several months and today I cannot access it.

  10. Kevin,
    I can’t get to it either. I reported it via the email form. (which is public and the best way to contact them if this happens again.) I happen to be at a conference and live blogging. Otherwise, I’d be at work and not see this comment for hours.

  11. Hi Jeanne

    Thanks for your reply. It appears they have completely restructed their website, and they have broken links to the webpage to Login.

    http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-827764.html

    ^^ Broken link at above URL if you hit “Register or Login”

    How can I get access to these online materials? The book is advertised as having this online access, and I purchased it mainly because of that.

    While we have written copies of the Chapter Exams, I don’t know where we can get the two full length practice exams other than the online portal. Do you have any information on this? I have reported it through the online form already with no response.

    As the author of the book who partnered with Sybex, I’d imagine you’d have more power than the average customer to look into this problem.

    Where can I get the other two full length practice texts that are described in the text and on the cover of the book? Thank you.

  12. Kevin,
    Ok. Reporting via the public form clearly isn’t working. I’ll complaint to our direct contact.

    Unfortunately the only place the full length practice exams are only online. (There are two not three.) Which makes this website really important!

  14. Jeanne,

    Wonderful ! I just checked and it seems to be back up.

    A server outage ? Hmm, with new loading screens, smoother GUI transitions, and lightly redesigned exam screens, it must have been a very productive server outage 🙂

    Thank you for your help and responsiveness.

  15. Hi,

    Do you know how many times can someone take the practice exams?

    Idealy we could take them multiple times.

    Thanks,
    Alan.

  16. Alan,
    You can take the practice exams as many times as you want. They becomes less effective over time as you memorize the answers. We’ve tried to have some similar looking questions that test different things to make it harder for them to “wear off.”

  17. It would be nice if there was a version without the online material and maybe charge less. I bought the book, but didn’t use the online material.

  20. The Sybex site returns 503 code. I’ve waited a couple of days and nothing changes. When can we expect it to be up again?

  21. Daniel: The site is working for me. Is there any particular page that isn’t working? (Also try again. You posted before the business day began so maybe they fixed it between your comment and my trying it)

  22. Hi Jeanne, you are right, it works now. I was trying to access it over the weekend. 🙂 Cheers and thanks for these great books!

  23. Hi Jeanne,

    Thank you for writing the OCA Study Guide that helps me preparing for the exam. I’m having trouble finding a 2016+ version of the book where most of the errata listings are fixed. Is there a different ISBN for that? How do I know the difference in printing 1 and 2? Currently using ISBN: 978-1-118-95740-0 with the 8 page errata from the site.

  24. Hi. It is the same ISBN number. Once book sellers run through the “older” printing, all books they send are the second printing.

    To tell what printing you have, you look at the page with the copyright and look at the bottom of the page. THe numbers that count down from 10 in the last line are different.

  29. Wiley recently gave out a new address for the flashcards etc. – but I’ve now spent hours trying to find the three OCA practice exams advertised on the front of the books – have they been withdrawn?

  32. Successfully registered, test bank returns URL not found error, and no link for flashcards.

  34. Even though I got ACCESS CODE, when I try to activate my code it gives error. What should I do?

  36. Hi,
    I bought OCA-Study Guide from Amazon a while ago, some years, I have registered the book, but I can’t find the registration code anymore. If I try to register it, it sais that I have registered it, and I know I did. Can you help me please to find the code for practice exams, I can’t find the mail I have only the email with the account creation on 2nd of February 2018?
    Thank you

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