1. Most people find it essential to establish some special time for learning. Be sure to set it for when you learn best … in the morning, early evening, etc., and stick to your schedule.
2. Use an effective method of study. Your own plan, if effective, is good. If yours didn’t work, you might try SQ3R method which involves 5 steps: survey the test objectives, generate questions before reading a section of the text, read a section, recite what you have read, and review the chapter.
3. When you are just beginning to organize your study habits, don’t be too ambitious. Don’t try to crowd all your time for study in the day and leave no time for other things.
4. Do not assume you can increase your capacity more by adding more hours of study. The idea is to use your time wisely. Ever notice the students who get the high grades are usually active in extra curricular activities? They can’t all be geniuses. They budget their time.
5. Make a chart of your activities for the week. Block in study time.
6. Space your learning periods during the week rather than concentrating them all at one time. You will be less fatigued and each time you will come with a new fresh approach.
7. Do not study similar technologies, back to back. This tends to increase interference and makes the retention of material more difficult.
8. Plan in advance for times–when more intensive study will be needed for exams.
9. Follow the schedule after it has begun and do not let it “slide”. You will probably need revisions, but you must stick to it to succeed. Do not let yourself be distracted. Let everyone know that this is your study time and you will be free at a later time.

Emotional and Physical Preparation

1. Your attitude toward the subject influences your effectiveness and/or ability to learn the subject. “If you think you can, you will”
2. Poor or bad attitudes towards exams are usually due to the fact that:
   A. The student is asked to perform a task which he/she has not practiced in real life. The questions are asked differently and he/she is afraid she/he will not be able to recognize the correct response.B. Much emphasis is placed upon the terms hard and difficult, when
   thinking of exams. Who ever heard of-an easy exam? This puts you in the attitude of thinking “I can’t do it” with the resultant panic.
3. Panic is the greatest enemy of the test taker. You might also add “worry” to this statement. It is natural to have some tension, but panic is destructive. What causes it?
4. There are four (4) real or supposed causes:
   1. A. Real incompetence. This is rather a common cause. The student sees a great deal to learn and he is afraid he knows nothing and really doesn’t know what’s important. He/she lose all perspective.
   2. Social sheep-following. Here the student follows the group. If the gang thinks it’s (panic) the thing to do, then the student follows suit. Seen usually in teenage groups.
   3. Seeds of doubt. Here the student listens to panic builders who are
      always saying, “this test is horrible”. “No one ever passes that exam.”
      The more the student thinks about it the greater the panic.
   4. Students have also pointed out that the following will produce panic;
      not knowing what the exam expects of the examine, trick questions,
      lack of knowledge about vocabulary.
5. How can you help yourself if you’re a panicker? Try these:
   a. Believe what panic you have built up you can break down.
   b. Don’t expect miraculous results but work steadily.
   c. Be practical. You can’t just ‘will’ to not panic.
   d. Use your planned study as insurance. It’s a means of strengthening your confidence.
6. Study wisely and do not allow poor study habits to rob you of rest, recreation or refreshments. You need all four in moderation.
7. Get some testing software and use them. Give yourself the allotted time and check answers.
8. The use of “pep pills”, or stimulants, is foolish. You pass the exam at the expense of physical health. The old saying that “once or twice can’t hurt you” is not true. It usually leads you to do it the 3rd or 4th time.

If you are rested, relaxed and ready, You will perform much better.

Taking Certification Tests

1. Come prepared with pen, pencil, and paper.
2. Arrive ahead of time. If you rush in, find your seat and begin, you are in no frame of mind to take the test. Now you must spend precious time catching your breath and settling down.
3. Know the general nature of the test: Adaptive, Multiple choice,etc.
   How much time do you have?
   How much does each question count?
   Can you leave out any questions?
   Do you understand the directions?
   Plan your time before you begin. Be strategic!
4. If, during the test, You find yourself panicking, take 10 slow, deep breaths. The preoccupation of taking them slowly will allow you a rest period.
5. Answer the easy questions first. This way you will give yourself confidence and can tackle the hard ones.
6. Don’t become upset by the apparent length or complexity of the test.
   One of the advantages of this type of test is that the exam can ask
   more questions about a variety of material and can, therefore, cover
   more material. The length has nothing to do with the content.
7. Read and follow the directions carefully.
   a. Many times the test will have a sample question as a guide.
   b. Do as the exam asks: Circle, Underline, List. etc.
   c. Watch the wording.
8. Be sure you understand the question. Reread or comeback later, if necessary.
9. Don’t spend too much time on any one question. Mark It and check later. Sometimes a later question will “trigger” your memory. If not, you’ve only lost a few points.
10. Do not think the every question is out to trick you. Questions are to test knowledge, not semantics.
11. Use cunning. Watch for those give away words (Always, All, Every, Some, Usually).
12. In answering matching questions, do the ones you know and cross
    out the answers as you go along. You’ll save time by not having to look through all of the terms for the answer you select.
13. In multiple choice questions, mark out the wrong choices to eliminate.
    Then read the statement through and see if you agree with your answer.
14. In completion of questions, watch the endings (a, an), length of line,
    number of lines. These are clues to answers.
15. Read the whole question twice! Pay particular attention to questions that have an “all of the above” alternative. Some test takers stop reading the question if the first answer is right. If two of the answers are right, the third must be right, and “all of the above” is the correct answer.
16. Mark clearly those questions you got stuck on. When you finish the test,run back through and spend extra time on these. Don’t change answers. This is the usual panic time and you’ll tend to want to read over the whole test. Don’t do that.
17. When you have accomplished all this, end your test!!!!

Today’s global, technologically dependent, constantly-changing economy has placed new demands on IT professionals. No longer does the American economy need massive numbers of relatively unskilled manufacturing workers to fill assembly lines. The United States is a “post-industrial” economy–one that is increasingly specializing in higher-paying information and technology fields (genetics, computer science, systems analysis, medicine, engineering, finance, education, entertainment, resource management, consulting, etc.)

It is difficult to precisely define critical thinking because it has many specific interpretations, probably as many as there are different certification exams. It is probably easier to explain what it is not.

It is not the passive absorption of the course material, without the questioning of assumptions and unproved claims regarding it. It is not about being able to associate particular terms with familiar-sounding words from a course or by remembering distinctive words from a textbook definition of a key term.

It is not the kind of education that requires memorization of descriptive information. It does not highly value simple recall of data. It does not worship the collection of information for its own sake, if that knowledge is not used and applied to the real world.

No matter how proficient a student is at memorization, he or she will never be able to compete with even an obsolete computer, and the computer is far cheaper to maintain than an employee. Employers therefore are searching for employees that can do what a computer cannot do–think.

Unfortunately, our schools have been slow to respond, still turning out graduates that are ready for the 1950s industrial economy. American grade schools often are less rigorous than those of our trade competitors, and demand little critical thinking from students. By the time students reach college, many are poorly prepared for the task. This, combined with the larger-than-ever numbers of students entering higher education today, has made the problem even more challenging for the business community.

Nevertheless, it is a challenge that committed educators and serious students must meet. Whether a job or further study awaits you after certification, the most important thing you can acquire from your studies is an enhanced ability to think critically.

If you want to have an exciting and well-paying career in today’s economy, you must recognize that your education, in some form or another, will never end. Therefore, you must first learn how to learn; everything else is secondary. Data changes, and information must be updated, but every reasoning skill you develop will reward you forever.

By no means does this mean that it is unimportant that you know every intricate detail of the Oracle architecure, or the correct syntax for a SQL statement. Facts are important, and ignorance of fundamental information is crippling.

However, consider for a moment something about which you personally know a lot of detailed information. Is this the case because you set down at a table and memorized it? Or is it because you have used or analyzed this information extensively? It is much easier to remember that about which you have thought deeply.

Further, unless you have acquired critical thinking skills you may not be able to distinguish between accurate information and disinformation. The “truth” and the “simple facts” are not always so easily identified. Thus, the study of raw facts must be married with the study of critical thinking.

As noted above, critical thinking may have different specific demands for individual Oracle tracks. Here are some examples of the kind things you should be able to do after you complete your certification study:

• recognize and evaluate sources of information
• organizing, classifying, and prioritizing information
• dividing concepts into individual parts and combining parts into a cohesive unit
• comparing and contrasting related concepts and institutions
• fusing isolated ideas into more sophisticated concepts
• formulating relationships between concepts or things
• identifying examples, recognizing symbolism, and making analogies
• appreciating perspectives, motivations, and roles of various institutional actors
• questioning core assumptions and unspoken understandings
• weighting the significance of phenomena
• analyzing logical argument and chains of thought
• using and evaluating evidence to defend or attack a proposition
• distinguishing between cause and effect
• distinguishing between relevant factors and irrelevant factors
• explaining unexpected phenomena and predicting events and results
• testing hypotheses and choosing between alternatives
• applying information and principles to the real world
• measuring the short-term against the long-term and the costs against the benefits
• creating and evaluating reforms and solutions to problems
• expressing one’s ideas in persuasive writing

In conclusion, critical thinking is about the use of information rather than its recall. It is far more interesting, more relevant to your needs, and arguably even easier than is memorization.

We all have the ability to think critically, and we all use these methods daily in our personal lives to make decisions. This is the essence of the certification exam.