Having set a deadline for the Technical/Software Support certification exam for November 10th in my prior blog posting, I’m pleased to report that I’ve scheduled the certification exam for tomorrow morning (November 5th).  I did manage to work my way through the audio lectures that were in Components 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, and 16.  I did not listen to the lectures for component 4, simply based upon my familiarity with component 4 content since I’ve been teaching in the areas covered by this component for years.

Once I finished the lectues I reviewed the self assessments for all of the components.  That effort included formatting  all of the multiple choice and true false questions in a manner so they could be imported into the Trandumper test engine.  This test engine provides a user interface that is similiar in its appearance and features to the test engine utilized by PearsonVue for multiple choice certification exams.

One Trandumper feature I really like is you can create tests that are composed of exam questions you have missed.  This approach has worked well for me in the past and I’m hopeful that I’ll have positive results tomorrow.  I have learned to adopt a similiar pattern when taking certification exams.  I usually take them at 10:00a.m. and don’t eat before the exam.  I use a “three pass” technique and follow an approach that I’ve identified as intelligent guessing.  For those who are interested, my approach is outlined in detail on my “Intelligent Guessing” website and includes a video explaining the process.  I strongly recommend viewing the video and completing its exercises.

I’ll report out my results after tomorrow’s exam along with a general analysis of the exam including my ideas about whether it is challenging enough to provide a measure of subject matter competency.