I just had to find a place to overshare.
This has been on my "to-do" list for about 2 years, but around Thanksgiving, I realized I was never going to do it unless I set a date, so I went in and picked a date and sort of. . .more or less. . .well, I did some studying, but not of the "taking a final in graduate stats" kind of studying you really should do. The weekend before my test date, I studied my brains out, realized I wasn't going to pass and rescheduled it for an extra week out. Continued studying every waking hour, walked into the test center and spent a miserable 2.75 hours reading questions and thinking I was going to fail, because there were so many judgement call questions. I was half-thinking the entire time "well, if I flunk, I won't flunk NEXT time." But I soldiered through and did my best, answering the questions. I got to the end, told the test I was finished; proctor came and I left the room, walked to the front office and the lady at the front handed me a piece of paper saying I had passed.
For a moment the world seemed to stop and then this dear lady said "you need to sit down before you faint." She also handed me a box of tissues. I finally got myself together, walked out, called my husband, and gave him the good news.
In terms of studying, I'm not sure I can give anyone any additional advice, except that I lurve Safaribooksonline. For $24.95 a month, you can get 10 sets of videos or books or combination thereof in your e-bookshelf to print off and read and study. The books and videos include Shon Harris's guides, so it really is a good deal.
It was a hard test. I said when I was studying for it, that I was going to take this test and be done with getting certifications, but now I'm thinking about my next cert. . .
