December 30th, 2009
Preparing for the MySQL Developer examinations - 0
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As promised in my last post (twenty days ago — life has been busy!) I am working through the MySQL Developer 5.0 examinations. I have just completed the first of two exams and I am trying to find time to cram for the second exam.
There are plenty of changes going on here — the original exam MySQL exam provider was changed this year from Pearson Vu to Prometric as Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL.
And now of course Sun is in limbo as it in turn is being acquired by Oracle — a deal being blocked in Europe because of , yes : MySQL. For a by the minute discussion of what is going on there just keep track of the postings at Planet MySQL.
Expect many FAQ’s to be out of date. It is better to check the MySQL Certification forum for the latest changes. The person to note is David Stokes who is the MySQL certification manager and who posts regularly to this forum.
How to study for the exam?
There is only one book which you are going to need — and that is the “MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide” (Paul DuBois, Stefan Hinz, and Carsten Pedersen, ISBN 0-672-32812-7) (link). The book itself is split into 4 sections, as there are four different exams.
- MySQL Developer I & II
- MySQL Database Administrator I & II
Besides the book you are also going to need a laser printer and a big stack of empty sheets.
On the CD with the book there are four more PDF’s with Exam study guides. First study the book, then print the PDF’s and work your way through the exam preparation questions. This is not optional, the preparation guide touches on many things that are explained briefly in the book — but will catch you off guard if you don’t work through the very pointed questions.
The book itself is excellent, concise and to the point and after reading it I really felt that I was ready for the exam.
How to book the exam?
To book the exam you need to buy vouchers for the exams from your (national/local) Sun Microsystems branch. For me that was Sun Taiwan. I wrote them an e-mail in English and they quickly responded and helped me with buying the correct vouchers. Great service.
As I mentioned earlier — the MySQL Developer exam is split into two parts. Each part sets you back a whopping US$ 200 and you need to complete both parts to become certified. There is some confusion about the exact price of the exams. Some of the documentation in Taiwan mentioned US$ 300 per exam, but in the end I paid the Taiwan dollar equivalent of US$ 200.
Now with the vouchers in hand you can book the exam through the Prometric website, the correct codes for the exams are:
Company: Sun Microsystems 310-Series.
- 310-812 Dev 5.0 I
- 310-813 Dev 5.0 II
What to expect at the exam
I had booked the Prometric exam at a Taiwan government institute in central Taipei. This place is setup for exams and I was not the only person taking an exam this time. I brought the required 2 sets of ID and made sure I carried as little as possible as it all had to fit into a small locker. (No need to cram anymore, right?).
The only gotcha was that they needed my Prometric ID number which I didn’t know and which wasn’t mentioned in the e-mail when I made the booking. A quick check of the Prometric website at a nearby computer (what WAS that password again?) helped me out there.
The exam itself was in exactly the same format as the Pearson Vue PHP Zend exam. Multiple choice questions on a computer screen. I needed about an hour to work through the 70 questions, giving me another 30 minutes to look again over the questions I had marked for review.
Press the “really, really sure” button ; en pick up your score card at the front desk. And of course realise that you have to do this one more time.
