Practise Tests and Brain ****.

OK, I know the difference between Brain **** and Practise Exams, but is there any way to tell the difference? I have seen sites claiming that they are Microsoft Certified Practise Test centers. My motto is 'trust no one'

I don't want to post their names because if they are not legit I don't want to 'promote' them on here, but they have this logo on their site:

What do you guys think?

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Comments

meadIT

Run their url through the search function at CertGuard - Exam Security & Integrity

That will tell you if they are legit or not.

jhmed

Awesome thanks!

EDIT: Checked the two and they were both SAFE!

Thanks again!

logisticalstyles

I have a question about braindumps and practice exams. I don't want to get screamed at or abused, but I don't see the difference between the two. First let me say that I study my butt off when it come to these tests and I don't condone cheating just to get a cert that you can't back up with knowledge and experience. Also let me say that I am relatively new to certification tests, but not to testing in general.

I took my A+ Essentials test last weekend and I could not believe how many of the questions were exactly the same as the questions from my practice tests and study materials. I think I saw maybe 5 out of 100 unfamilliar questions on the test. Now, granted, I did use just about every practice test out there and I took a practice test just about every other day so I may have exhausted the possibility of seeing something new. But how is it possible for these questions to be so similar to the actual test questions without someone doing a braindump of sorts. What's the difference between my ExamCram book with practice questions straight from the test and someone telling me what questions they saw on thier test. I personally feel the Exam Cram is worse because they give you the answers, while I would have to look up the answer to any questions braindumped because the certification test doesn't give you the correct answers afterwards.

This leads to my second question, which is.. What defines brain dumping? If someone says or posts online that the 601 exam has a question that asks 'what is the purpose of ntbootdd.sys?' is that considered braindumping? That to me is almost the same as the A+ for dummies books that have the little test tips on the side that say 'For the exam be sure to know that ntbootdd.sys is related to SCSI'. Either way it would seem that the information came from someone that took the test and remembered what was on it so they could relay that information to a future test taker.

Does anyone understand what I'm trying to say/ask?

jibbajabba

Well

In the IT industry, a 'brain ****', usually spelled as a compound word braindump, refers to material that has been memorized, or captured electronically by means of a small device such as a PDA or cell phone with a built in camera, from an IT certification and re-created to provide an almost exact replica of the exam, thus violating most but not all non-disclosure agreements agreed to prior to the administration an exam.[1] Examinees are often encouraged to remove their personal items other than their identification prior to an exam

Basically those companies who sell braindumps normally send people to specific tests to either memorize the questions or even worse, working together with testing centers who obviously have access to the materials.

On the other hand, there are only so many way to ask a specific question so therefore even legit material seems similar.

'what is the purpose of ntbootdd.sys?' - this is one example. Let's assume this is a legit question from the exam. I doubt that the same question will be found in a legit preparation course. They will probably rather ask

"Which file is loaded to handle disk access", where you might get

a) NTLDR
b) NTDETECT
C) BOOT.INI
D) NTBOOTDD.SYS

as possible answers.

Makes sense ?

dynamik

Exactly. It becomes much more obvious with more complex material. The A+, and CompTIA exams in general aren't good examples of this type of thing. They're based more on trivia than thinking critically. Like Gomjaba said, how many ways can you ask things like what port HTTP uses?

tiersten

dynamik wrote: »

Like Gomjaba said, how many ways can you ask things like what port HTTP uses?

Gotta be at least two. You're forgetting Jeopardy style. "The IANA assigned port number for the dominant client-server hypertext protocol."

jibbajabba

tiersten wrote: »

dominant client-server hypertext transfer protocol."

*fixed*

logisticalstyles

dynamik wrote: »

Exactly. It becomes much more obvious with more complex material. The A+, and CompTIA exams in general aren't good examples of this type of thing. They're based more on trivia than thinking critically. Like Gomjaba said, how many ways can you ask things like what port HTTP uses?

I'll buy that reasoning. I agree that the A+ is mainly a lot of trivia that I won't be presented with in real life situations. So are the questions for say a Microsoft exam a lot different from the practice questions?

tiersten

Gomjaba wrote: »

*fixed*

*shakes fist at Gomjaba* I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling Gomjaba!

Paul Boz

The only safe way to know if the practice tests you're using is to check forums like this one, where braindumping is outlawed. You can rest assured that if you do a search for *name of practice test* and you get positive results, you're good to go. Either that, or just search for *practice tests* and see what others are using. This site does an excellent job of making sure people do not use banned materials, either willingly or not.