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Oscillation properties of the self-adjoint, two term, differential equation $${(-1)}^n{\left(p\left(x\right)y^{\left(n\right)}\right)}^{\left(n\right)}+q\left(x\right)y=0(*)$$ are investigated. Using the variational method and the concept of the principal system of solutions it is proved that (*) is conjugate on $R=(-\infty ,\infty )$ if there exist an integer $m\in \{0,1,\cdots ,n-1\}$ and $c_0,\cdots ,c_m\in R$ such that $${\int }_{\infty }^0{x}^{2(n-m-1)}{p}^{-1}\left(x\right)dx=\infty ={\int }_0^{\infty }{x}^{2(n-m-1)}{p}^{-1}\left(x\right)dx$$ and $$\underset{x_1\downarrow -\infty ,x_2\uparrow \infty }{lim\; sup}{\int }_{x_1}^{x_2}q\left(x\right){(c_0+c_{1}x+\cdots +c_m{x}^m)}^{2}dx\le 0,q\left(x\right)\neg \equiv 0.$$ Some extensions of this criterion are suggested.