I found this an absolutely essential book to prepare for the exams, if only for the fact that it tells you exactly what topics are covered in the exams.

I think few people know everything there is to know about MySQL. I find that I'm very good at some parts of MySQL, particularly things I do everyday. Other things, which I rarely (or never) do, I could use improvement. In that case, this book is not a good teaching book. So I turned to another book, Sams' "Teach Yourself MySQL in 21 Days" to cover subject matter I need work on.

My only complaints are:
1) The questions at the end of each chapter should be multiple-choice, as the exams are.
2) The book should have come with a CD with the sample data used in the book. That would have saved time, having to manually recreate the data examples.