getting ready for OCA - No experience

[tayo agunbiade]

Hi All,
I came across this site while searching for any organized group of people who are Oracle certified.
Am coming from a unix background, my question is I want to do the OCA, is the book below the best book to prepare for this exam (starting with the 1st : Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL (#1Z0-007))?
OCA Oracle9i Associate DBA Certification Exam Guide
by Author(s): Jason Couchman Sudheer Marisetti
ISBN: 007222536X
(FYI : Price is $54.50 on bookpool)
The review I found is not so good though ( see :
http://www.plaza101.com/plaza/store/shop4198/pd007222536X/Online/Books/Computers_Internet/Certification/ )
Kindly help this newbie from "SUN" land .
Happy new year !!!

[Terry Wang]

not a good book, definitely. i used it and failed the first time(i have limited oracle exp. but not bad at sql server and sql). then i bought sybex's book and passed easily 2nd time.
reasons not good(at least):
1) incomplete coverage: e.g., the ANY and ALL keywords are not mentioned at all, however, they're basic and definitely will show up in real exams (1-3 questions, both times for me); no i-sql coverage (however, 1 question will be asked), ...
2) errors in content and practice exams;
3) the sybex book is well written because the authors worked on previous 8i version too. both versions got good reviews. through the book, the authors keep telling you which features are new to oracle, which is good for your job too.
4) the practice questions are very good in sybex book, very similiar or even tougher than real ones. the authors also remind you to pay attention to those "easy-to-miss" simple questions.
5) the sybex book is a little over detailed, but guanrantee your pass if you read carefully.
one additional suggestion is to review the last few chapters very thoroughly(don't get lazy when almost finishing the book), there're tons of questions.