MySQL certification - the experience

The guide is actually two books in one: The first part deals with the stuff that one is supposed to know for the Core Exam, and the second part prepares one for the Pro Exam. Each chapter deals with a particular topic, and then presents up to one hundred test questions to check if the stuff from the chapter was properly digested...

The purpose of these questions is twofold and slightly different from the questions in the exam, though: The questions in the study guide are usually open ended, and one is expected to formulate a free form answer, then check the result. The answer given is not only the expected answer, but is usually complemented with additional explainations. Some answers even add additional information to the stuff presented in the chapter that precedes them (but all of them can be properly answered with information from that chapter).

Contrast this with the questions from the test: Each test has 70 questions, most of which are multiple choice questions of the "chose one answer" or the "chose one to n answers" type. At the end of the test are a few (less than five in my forms) questions of the "fill in the blanks" type. The stuff asked in the exam pretty much matches the stuff explained in the study guide, and also the quality and spirit of the questions from the study guide prepare you well for the exam. Multiple choice tests are hard to do, though, for test authors and tested persons alike. Some of the questions are always bound to leave the tested persons with the feeling of "Wow, that question was not taking my MySQL knowledge, but my ability to properly read and understand questions". Generally the questions are okay, and ask for stuff that is actually useful when you are working with MySQL.

My advice for taking the test:

• The test is hard and is designed to be so. Do not underestimate it. This requires serious work to pass.
• Do not simply rely on the Study Guide. There is a ton of additional information available from the Online Manual, which while not really needed to pass will be useful in itself.
• Stuff sinks in much deeper and better when tried out. Download the world.sql sample database and try the stuff shown in the Guide. It makes a world of a difference. :)
• Build yourself your own test exam. Randomly select 70 test questions from all chapters relevant to the test you'll take - each chapter of the guide will tell you how much stuff from this chapter will be weighted in the actual exam. Then do your test exam and try to do it in time. That's as close as you can get to the real test without actually doing it.
• Reading a chapter and doing the questions is fine. Reading a chapter, doing the examples, and then doing the test questions two days later is much better, though. You'll be actually testing your long term memory, and that is where you want this stuff to be when working with MySQL

And keep in mind that the exam will not only testing your general SQL abilities, but will ask plenty of MySQL specific knowledge as well. In fact, I'd weigh both types of questions 50:50 for an actual test.

Is it worth it? Well, for me the certification is a job requirement. It also is a good foundation to build on: I found the time I spent in the Docs and the Guide well spent, and the folks in Freenode:#mysql that I used to try out my newly found knowledge hopefully felt the same. At least it is now proven that the stuff from the Docs and the Guide contain all necessary information to easily solve all First and Second Level Support questions that come up on a heavily frequented MySQL support channel within one typical week. How's that for useful?

The questions in the actual test matched the content of the Guide, so the Exam is well built and fair within the usual limitiations that are inherent to this kind of testing. That's pretty much the best one can say of any kind of test, I think.