1. The word relational is used since Oracle Database 10g defines the relationships between tables. It is these relationships that allow applications to navigate an assortment of tables and assemble results from more than one table.

2. The varchar2 data type can accommodate up to 4000 characters.

3. Data consistency refers to the ability to ensure that related items of information are manipulated in a similar fashion. Suppose an application assigns a department to a new employee as a two-digit number field. Sometime down the road, due to company growth, the department identifier is changed to three digits. All the data where this used-to-be two-character identifier is stored must be changed to reflect the expansion of the department codes.

4. Packages can contain a mixture of one or more functions and procedures.

5. A procedure receives from zero to many parameters as it is invoked, and goes about its business until the end of its code segment. A function, on the other hand, accepts one or more parameters as it is called and returns a value to the code from where it was invoked. The procedure passes nothing back to its caller.

6. Metadata defines items such as the names of tables in the database, who owns the tables, the data types of the columns in each table, and who is allowed to look at what data.

7. When columns are displayed, they use the date data type, containing a day/month/year component, whereas, by default, the timestamp data type columns contain a time-of-day component as well.