The Morepheus Guide to Kill **** and Heal The Certification Industry

Mrock4

At the end of the day certification exam changes would have to be based on a business decision, after a cost/benefit analysis.

For example, Cisco would have to determine if the cost of going "all practical" is worth the benefit- or if there is a driving business decision to do so. Dumping will never be totally eradicated- so the goal is only to minimize it to an acceptable level. It may very well be Cisco's stance that dumping is not to a level that it is harming their reputation (yet), and therefore the only mitigating factor is to update the exams reasonably often. Of course this is just an example.

Dumping is hard to quantify. How do you know how many people dumped the exam? Because of this, how would someone in the Cisco exam development department justify more money to senior level executives? I don't know about anyone else, but I need hard numbers to justify new technologies/more money. If I went to them and said "it seems like dumping is really bad", they'd turn me around and say "get us some numbers" before handing out more money to alter the test drastically.

spiderjericho

There was a Packet Pushers episode where the CCIE Security product manager came out right and said she knew people were cheating on these exams. But again what is the solution, there's only so much time and energy you can put into "Catch Me if You Can."

The only thing I can't stand are those who gloat about it. I got a 1000/1000 on T-Shoot, Route, Switch or whatever Microsoft exam. Yeah right. Sure, buddy. It's so much information, and with the trivial pursuit nature of some of the questions, it's very difficult to score a perfect. I've never met someone who knows everything.

shodown

spiderjericho wrote: »

There was a Packet Pushers episode where the CCIE Security product manager came out right and said she knew people were cheating on these exams. But again what is the solution, there's only so much time and energy you can put into "Catch Me if You Can."

The only thing I can't stand are those who gloat about it. I got a 1000/1000 on T-Shoot, Route, Switch or whatever Microsoft exam. Yeah right. Sure, buddy. It's so much information, and with the trivial pursuit nature of some of the questions, it's very difficult to score a perfect. I've never met someone who knows everything.

I beg to differ on exams like Thoot. There are too many examples of guys getting 1000/1000 or getting all 10 Troubleshooting questions right on the lab exam. For a lot of us, being on the CLI is much eaiser than being on a multiple choice questions as we are looking to solve a problem, not answer a question. I didn't get a 1000/1000, but I'm sure I would have if I had studyed up on a few areas of the test. I'm sure I got all the SIM's correct.

m3zilla

I 2nd what shodown says. If you give me an exam like TSHOOT, I have a much better chance of 1000/1000 (which I did) than something like the MCITP.

For those who thinks more "hands on" is the answer...how do you suggest they do this? As of right now, i can drive to the local Pearson Vue for my exam. If you want hands on, you're going to need someone there to facilitate/administered the exam, and I'm pretty sure the receptionist isn't going to be able to do this. The cost of the exam would sky rocket, and you would probably have to go out of your way just to take the exam. If this was the case with the CCNA, how many people do you think would renew their cert? It's just not realistic with entry to mid level certifications (CCNA - CCNP)

If you say "hands on" as in stuff like the Cisco simulation, then that's not the answer either. For example, just because someone can configure DHCP/DNS on a server, it doesn't mean they understand how it works. In networking terms, the difference between an engineer and John Doe is that the engineer not only know how to configure the device, he understands how it works, and what to look for when it goes wrong.

Zartanasaurus

1000/1000 seems to be the median score on the TSHOOT, even among TE members. I definitely wouldn't knock anyone for that.

spiderjericho

I did also throw in Route and Switch. Or someone who 1000s the written CCIE (which as 100ish questions).

I forgot about the format of the T-Shoot.