Tweet Outs MCT who Promotes ****

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eMeS

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, any company that delivers certification exams needs to address this at the point of delivery of the exam. This is not just Microsoft.

For example, the test center that is closest to me is substandard and has very lax security. It would be easy for anyone to record an exam there, or for the people who run the business to record and resell exams. We've heard anecdotes many times here about testing center that are even worse.

I rarely take exams at a testing center, but every time I do I complete the feedback about the testing center. It's never been positive, and it's also never been acted upon. IMO vendors like Microsoft need to drive their suppliers to provide a better level of service and do a better job securing the exams.

IMO the weak link is the point of delivery of the exams. Because this specific case was about an MCT, I'd be willing to wager that there are MCTs out there that don't know what **** are or why it's wrong to use them.

That and even though the MCT voluntarily stepped forward, his explanation seemed a little bit weak...

MS

earweed

Little weak is putting it mildly. He didn't seem to put much focus on the warning test takers to avoid the **** by stating consequences of getting caught or how to report ****. This getting put on twitter is probably a good thing and that trainer should probably be investigated. It would have maybe been better if he'd been reported via email but the students probably didn't know about that avenue.
That trainers Rep has been tarnished and MS will probably have a closer look at him.

eMeS

earweed wrote: »

Little weak is putting it mildly. He didn't seem to put much focus on the warning test takers to avoid the **** by stating consequences of getting caught or how to report ****. This getting put on twitter is probably a good thing and that trainer should probably be investigated. It would have maybe been better if he'd been reported via email but the students probably didn't know about that avenue.
That trainers Rep has been tarnished and MS will probably have a closer look at him.

I'm not sure why it would matter though. Really the only advantage to being an MCT is that you can train from the MOC. Training companies that deliver MOC all deliver generally the exact same product. The only way that they differentiate themselves is on price.

I can have an MCT deliver any MOC class for $500 per day or less. Usually less. These are some of the lowest trainer rates in the training industry.

This trainer could likely take home much more delivering Microsoft training that is not MOC-based, and he wouldn't have to be an MCT or hold any of the certs.

MS

earweed

True about the rates they get. Non MCTs probably promote **** openly as they raise the pass rates (and thus make more). I just think there should be more MS could do legally to thwart the ****. I don't however think he has to tell the students about ****, except to warn about possible consequences of using them, as anytime you google for information on any exam you are bombarded with ads for dumpsites.
I just think he didn't do a good job explaining or defending himself.

eMeS

earweed wrote: »

I just think there should be more MS could do legally to thwart the ****. I don't however think he has to tell the students about ****, except to warn about possible consequences of using them, as anytime you google for information on any exam you are bombarded with ads for dumpsites. I just think he didn't do a good job explaining or defending himself.

Agreed...as I said above I'd like to see it addressed at the source. There's really only 3 possibilities for how the exams are released into the wild:

1 - Someone at the vendor is releasing them. Unlikely, but it probably happens.
2 - Someone at the test delivery site is releasing them. Probably highly likely.
3 - Students are memorizing/recording the exams. Probably happens, but I think much less than #2.

Rather than do all kinds of fancy statistics to try to detect when a exam taker has cheated, I'd much prefer to see the most likely source addressed, which is at the point of exam delivery. As I said above, many instructors and even more students likely have no idea why **** are bad.

BTW, if you really want to see some interesting conversations, you should take a look at what a small but highly vocal percentage of MCTs in the official MCT newsgroups think about MOC. I don't look over there very often, but they almost never discuss ****. The MOC itself has been dumped. The other aspect of this is that many of the shadier training companies encourage the use of **** in order to increase pass rates. I've yet to see that addressed by any vendor.

MS

skyline

hypnotoad

I've seen ****, and they can be down-to-the-word correct. Same questions, same order. Even the answers (A, B, C, D) are in the same places. **** aside, I've taken exams and failed, gone back a week later and got the exact same test.

In my opinion, MS (or cisco, etc) would totally fix this by pulling from a huge question pool, randomizing the answer order, and randomizing the question order. What is so hard about this?

It seems very easy to fix, so someone explain to me why this can't be done, because my conclusion at this point in time is that none of these companies really want to solve the problem.

eMeS

hypnotoad wrote: »

I've seen ****, and they can be down-to-the-word correct. Same questions, same order. Even the answers (A, B, C, D) are in the same places. **** aside, I've taken exams and failed, gone back a week later and got the exact same test.

In my opinion, MS (or cisco, etc) would totally fix this by pulling from a huge question pool, randomizing the answer order, and randomizing the question order. What is so hard about this?

It seems very easy to fix, so someone explain to me why this can't be done, because my conclusion at this point in time is that none of these companies really want to solve the problem.

I agree completely with this..+rep given.

The only thing I can think of is there is some legal aspect of standardization that requires the exams to be the same, with questions and answers presented in the same order, over specific periods of time. In other words, as much as possible people need to be presented the same exam and under as close to the same conditions as possible. I don't know that to be a fact, so it's pure speculation on my part as to why the question order/answer orders are not a bit more random.

MS

MentholMoose

eMeS wrote: »

The only thing I can think of is there is some legal aspect of standardization that requires the exams to be the same, with questions and answers presented in the same order, over specific periods of time. In other words, as much as possible people need to be presented the same exam and under as close to the same conditions as possible. I don't know that to be a fact, so it's pure speculation on my part as to why the question order/answer orders are not a bit more random.

I think it must be part of the exam creation methodology followed by Microsoft Learning when creating the exams. In this blog post, Item 411: What's In and What's Out - Answers to Some Questions (Part 3) - Born to Learn, they state that they follow The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing from the APA, so I'm guessing this includes a rule they are adhering to, rather than a legal requirement. That blog post has some other insights, too, and is an interesting read.

Also, not all vendors are like this. For example, I had to retake the VCP410 exam, due to a problem at the test center. The exam I got on the second attempt was almost completely different than the first attempt. I don't think they just maintain multiple exam variations, since I've read blog/forum posts of a VMware training employee indicating they maintain and constantly update a massive pool of questions that is randomly drawn upon for exams.

earweed

I had to redo the 70-643 a few times..ahemmm
I don't recall any complete repeat questions. Some were similar but the exams were different. Even a different number of questions each time.

hypnotoad

MentholMoose wrote: »

I think it must be part of the exam creation methodology followed by Microsoft Learning when creating the exams. In this blog post, Item 411: What's In and What's Out - Answers to Some Questions (Part 3) - Born to Learn, they state that they follow The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing from the APA, so I'm guessing this includes a rule they are adhering to, rather than a legal requirement. That blog post has some other insights, too, and is an interesting read.

Also, not all vendors are like this. For example, I had to retake the VCP410 exam, due to a problem at the test center. The exam I got on the second attempt was almost completely different than the first attempt. I don't think they just maintain multiple exam variations, since I've read blog/forum posts of a VMware training employee indicating they maintain and constantly update a massive pool of questions that is randomly drawn upon for exams.

Well, I can tell you they randomize the GRE, SAT, etc. Of the two exams I've failed (not saying which two, but you can probably guess the company) Questions asked, question order, question answer order, question wording, and even the numbers (i.e. network numbers and masks) were exactly the same a week later.

eMeS

MentholMoose wrote: »

...they state that they follow The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing from the APA, so I'm guessing this includes a rule they are adhering to, rather than a legal requirement.

Yeah, all the rules established by the APA around testing stem from either a legal requirement or successful legal challenge.

I took a fairly serious psychometrics class in graduate school where all we did the entire semester was talk about legal aspects of testing. This is one of the reasons that I always get a good laugh out of an employer creating their own "tests" as part of an interviewing and selection process....

The ITIL exams that I'm involved with are randomized from a large pool of questions as well, within a specific set of rules. I'm not sure about how the Prometric version of the ITIL Foundation exam works...it may be the same exam or it might be randomized.

MS