Gaining the Oracle9i DBA OCP certification requires passing the 1Z0-033 Oracle9i Database: Performance Tuning™ certification exam. This exam takes 120 minutes to complete. Candidates are tested on 65 questions, and they must pass at least 72% of those questions in order to earn their certification.
Oracle recommends that candidates prepare for the 1Z0-033 exam using Self Tests’ practice exam,
1Z0-033 Oracle9i Database: Performance Tuning. They also recommend using Transcender’s practice exam, Cert-1Z0-033 : DBCert: 9i Database: Performance Tuning, to prepare for the 1Z0-033 exam. Additionally, candidates who wish to best increase their chances of doing well on the test use the certification exam preparation services provided through TestsLive.
Some candidates may feel that the amount of preparation recommended for the 1Z0-033 exam is too much. However, these candidates should consider the amount of information that they will be required to demonstrate knowledge of during the certification exam. Not only do candidates need to be knowledgeable about Oracle9i performance tuning as a whole, they also need to understand sizing the buffer cache and SGA structures. This requires candidates to be able to monitor buffer cache use, understand the differences of pools within the buffer cache, use DBW processors, and be able to configure the instances to use I/O slaves. Other skills required for the exam include monitoring lock contention, using Oracle Blocks efficiently, knowledge of diagnostic and tuning tools, and the ability to optimize sort operations.