Oracle SQL Certification: 1Z0-051 or

1Z0-061?





The first of the Oracle 12c certification exams to go into production is 1Z0-061: Oracle Database 12c:
SQL Fundamentals. Oracle University put this exam into production almost simultaneously with the
retirement of the much older exam 1Z0-007: Introduction to Oracle9i SQL. However, the 11g version of
the SQL Fundamentals exam, 1Z0-051, is still available. Having two equivalent exams in production leads
to a fair amount of confusion among certification candidates. In this article I will discuss the two exams,
what is different between them, and how to choose one over the other.

Either will satisfy the SQL requirement for the "Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Associate"
or "Oracle PL/SQL Developer Certified Associate" tracks. The SQL requirement can also be satisfied by
passing 1Z0-047: Oracle Database SQL Expert. However, 1Z0-047 is a considerably harder exam than
either 1Z0-051 or 1Z0-061. This is an option that should only be considered if you have worked with
Oracle SQL extensively. This article focuses on the SQL fundamentals exams.

The 11g and 12c SQL Fundamentals exams are almost identical in terms of content covered and
requirements satisfied for Oracle certifications. Oracle does not require you to use the 12c SQL
Fundamentals when pursuing the 12c DBA track or the 11g exam for the DBA track in that release. Any
Oracle SQL exam (including retired ones) can be used for any Oracle certification track that has a SQL
requirement. For example, the SQL test I took over a decade ago was 1Z0-001: Introduction to Oracle:
SQL and PL/SQL. That test has been retired for years, but could still be applied for the 12c track.

While the content of the two exams is very similar, there are a few differences. Both 1Z0-051 and 1Z0-
061 contain forty-one topics. Of those, thirty-six are common to both exams. This means the tests have
about 88% commonality by topic count. The last section of the 11g exam (Creating Other Schema
Objects) was removed from the exam in the 12c version. The topics covered in that section are:

Create simple and complex views
Retrieve data from views
Create, maintain, and use sequences
Create and maintain indexes
Create private and public synonyms
For the 1Z0-061 exam, Oracle University added a new 'Introduction' section with the following four
topics:

Describe the features of Oracle Database 12c
Describe the salient features of Oracle Cloud 12c
Explain the theoretical and physical aspects of a relational database
Describe Oracle server's implementation of RDBMS and object relational database management system
(ORDBMS)
They also added one more topic to the "Managing Tables using DML statements" section:

Truncate data
I have to say that I am very disappointed with Oracle University's decision to put TRUNCATE (which is a
DDL operation) under a section specifically about DML statements. This is not something that makes
sense in a test designed for people who are new to SQL. I am sure that OU would be heartbroken to
learn of my disapproval.
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