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Do You Report Cheating?

When the A+/Net+/Sec+ trifecta were transitioning from "good for life" certifications to CE certifications, I was teaching a lot of CompTIA classes on military bases.

At one particular base, I was teaching Sec+. The class was engaged. They were asking pertinent questions.

At the end of class, their commanding officer handed each one of them a set of burned CDs with the name of a well-known brain dump written in Sharpie on the surface. He told them to memorize the questions and answers and that they would be fine.

I was extremely angry that they were so brazen about cheating. I reported them, even with the risk of losing future work.

There is no place in our industry for cheaters.
This happened at our college as well. My daughter was handed a DVD with a bunch of VCE files on it. She asked me about it - I told her to shred the thing and summarily put a stop to the practice.

I'm know people out there still rely on VCEs to cheat the system.

Part of the problem within the DoD (I guess it's DoW, now?) is the pressure that military members as well as civilian contractors have to pass according to DoD 8570/8740 standards. I distinctly remember two stories where people where required to have Sec+ but were not in jobs even requiring that kind of knowledge (two ladies who did desk phones, one fellow who did surveillance cameras). They all lost their jobs because they could not get the cert in the very short timeframe. This puts a lot of pressure on people to pass an exam, knowledge of which they would not need to do their job effectively, just to keep their job.

I presented this problem directly to Todd Thibodeaux a couple years ago. While he said that CompTIA was working with the DoD to sort it, it was really 'their' problem. He was right, but that doesn't help matters with those that lost their jobs.

It doesn't justify cheating, but it does explain the motivation.

/r

Need some assistance and Help with A+ Pace

I used to teach Core 1 and 2 in 40 hours.

I skipped every single lab, practice quiz, PBQ, and practice exam and assigned them as outside work.
That's the only way I can see getting that done. 100% didactic - death by powerpoint.

i m having problem finding the presentation planner here is what i have under resources tab
You won't find it there - those kinds of things will be in the original curriculum offering for instructors. The CIN resources would just be things that instructors would share with one another (hints, training ideas, homegrown materials, etc) as well as Train the Trainer presentations.
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Need some assistance and Help with A+ Pace

5 hours per day x 9 days? o_O
Your client might need to see the content themselves.
In any case, I suggest that you refer to platform.comptia.org, then change the course pacing guide

You may be able to deliver the course, sure.
But you might need to skip the labs altogether, and focus only on the book content.

Do You Report Cheating?

Hey everyone, happy Tuesday! So I was teaching a DataSys+ class last week and there are some security topics in the course. This being a military group, I knew that they had most likely done a Security+ at some point and mentioned that they should have seen some of these topics on their Security+ exam. One of the students relayed to me that he thought the exam was so much easier now than it was years ago when he first took it. I asked when he took it and he said just a few months ago. I asked more about his experience on the exam and he said that these days all you have to do is memorize the questions in the test bank because they're practically the same questions as on the exam. I asked more about the test bank he (and another student who was in his same Sec+ class) used and he went on to describe the VCE Player that is commonly used with braindumps. He also said that when he had a difficult question on the exam, he simply raised his hand and the instructor would sit there and go through the question with him. The instructor was not only proctoring the exam, but also helping students out during the exam.

After the class was over, I talked to the owner of another training company that I knew does business with this group and he said he had already reported it to CompTIA, but CompTIA seems to be saying they can't do anything without any sort of hard evidence and apparently isn't going to do anything about it. So my question is, should I even bother reporting this to CompTIA if they're not going to do anything anyways? All I have is what students told me about their experience. No physical, hard, concrete evidence. Does CompTIA actually care about cheating, or so long as a training company brings them a lot of business they don't really care about how they get the students to pass the exam? What would you do?
When the A+/Net+/Sec+ trifecta were transitioning from "good for life" certifications to CE certifications, I was teaching a lot of CompTIA classes on military bases.

At one particular base, I was teaching Sec+. The class was engaged. They were asking pertinent questions.

At the end of class, their commanding officer handed each one of them a set of burned CDs with the name of a well-known brain dump written in Sharpie on the surface. He told them to memorize the questions and answers and that they would be fine.

I was extremely angry that they were so brazen about cheating. I reported them, even with the risk of losing future work.

There is no place in our industry for cheaters.
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Do You Report Cheating?

That's part of the problem here. The training company is also the testing center and has a couple of "mobile sites" that allows them to offer proctoring of exams onsite. My understanding is that they are supposed to send a proctor, but that they have been letting the instructor input another proctor's information and credentials and just proctoring the exam themselves, so the instructor ends up being the proctor. And being a mobile site, that they can set up in a hotel conference room / ball room / etc.... there's no cameras. They're relying on the trust and integrity of the people, which in this case... well... you be the judge. 🤷‍♂️
David,

This is a Pearson Vue problem. CompTIA relies on Pearson to administer the exams. I've seen this too. Pearson Vue 'Mobile Test Centers' are renowned for cheating.

Brian

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