Question of the Week #15 - Final Assessments

[Jwehrle]

Hey everyone and happy Monday! Continuing our theme of Exam readiness, we are starting this week off with a question around the Final Assessments that are available, and what you can do (or what you are doing) to help Students prepare for the CompTIA Certification Exam.

Question: How can you best utilize (or how are you utilizing today) the Final Assessments within both the CertMaster Learn and/or CertMaster Practice products to help ensure that Students are prepared for the high-stakes CompTIA Certification Exams?

This is inspired by a recent question from an Instructor, so please share ANY and ALL ideas, thoughts and suggestions to us and your fellow Instructors. We will circle back Friday with our take and hopefully some great conversations, have a great week everyone!

 

[Rick Butler]

If they are like me, you save that "Final Assessment" for the very last. Practice questions for most are at a premium and we have been told in the past that the questions that appear in CML are not to the same rigorous grade as the ones that show up in CMP - CMP are more certification grade, where CML tend to be useful for building confidence and review.

So in the interests of thrift, a learner may just get CML&L and forego CMP and hope that the material preparation and questions they get are strong enough to exercise their knowledge of a topic before taking a live exam.

There is a dynamic that I've experienced where, once you've read the book(s), you're going into a sharpening mode, and that involves questioning, answering, and refining. This is how I see most people using question banks (including myself). Answering that question, "what am I missing" to bring my score from an 75% to 95%.

Not saying that CMP isn't worth getting, particularly for those that need to drill. But part of the issue with question banks is once you've seen a question, you can't unsee it. If you know the answer or you've used the Q&A bank to refine your knowledge, you can't really use it to assess your knowledge anymore, because...well...you know the answers already. So that "Final Assessment" is that pre-test you take to make sure you're ready.

This is also speaks to the allure towards braindumps. Capturing live exam questions and using them in the refining process does bring a candidate to passing (inappropriately), but some people want the cert more than they want the knowledge. I know I see it all the time.

So to digest this down, it comes down to refining knowledge versus actual assessment and where the tools are used.

/r

 

[Jwehrle]

If they are like me, you save that "Final Assessment" for the very last. Practice questions for most are at a premium and we have been told in the past that the questions that appear in CML are not to the same rigorous grade as the ones that show up in CMP - CMP are more certification grade, where CML tend to be useful for building confidence and review.

So in the interests of thrift, a learner may just get CML&L and forego CMP and hope that the material preparation and questions they get are strong enough to exercise their knowledge of a topic before taking a live exam.

There is a dynamic that I've experienced where, once you've read the book(s), you're going into a sharpening mode, and that involves questioning, answering, and refining. This is how I see most people using question banks (including myself). Answering that question, "what am I missing" to bring my score from an 75% to 95%.

Not saying that CMP isn't worth getting, particularly for those that need to drill. But part of the issue with question banks is once you've seen a question, you can't unsee it. If you know the answer or you've used the Q&A bank to refine your knowledge, you can't really use it to assess your knowledge anymore, because...well...you know the answers already. So that "Final Assessment" is that pre-test you take to make sure you're ready.

This is also speaks to the allure towards braindumps. Capturing live exam questions and using them in the refining process does bring a candidate to passing (inappropriately), but some people want the cert more than they want the knowledge. I know I see it all the time.

So to digest this down, it comes down to refining knowledge versus actual assessment and where the tools are used.

/r

Excellent insight Rick, we will definitely have some more to share on this Friday. I just took my first CompTIA Exam (Project+) last week and I can absolutely say there is some value to each, and in their own different ways

 

[Jarrel]

Chapter exams are used as formative assessments whereas, the final assessment in CertMaster Learn can be used as summative assessment at the end of the course. Note: *can be used, not a must. In some deliveries, the school may opt to create their own exam instead.

CertMaster Learn is good to reinforce learning.
CertMaster Practice is more for students who are rooting for the certification path.
Taking both and getting 80-90% in the final exams will help assess if a student is indeed prepared to take the certification exam.
Otherwise, we'll advise them to study further.

The challenge with the final assessment is that it doesn't show which questions the student got wrong.
Some students get annoyed by it, but i simply tell them that it simulates an actual cert exam that is why it is formatted like that.
They then see the chapters that they need to focus on, rather than just a specific subject/topic.

 

[Jwehrle]

Chapter exams are used as formative assessments whereas, the final assessment in CertMaster Learn can be used as summative assessment at the end of the course. Note: *can be used, not a must. In some deliveries, the school may opt to create their own exam instead.

CertMaster Learn is good to reinforce learning.
CertMaster Practice is more for students who are rooting for the certification path.
Taking both and getting 80-90% in the final exams will help assess if a student is indeed prepared to take the certification exam.
Otherwise, we'll advise them to study further.

The challenge with the final assessment is that it doesn't show which questions the student got wrong.
Some students get annoyed by it, but i simply tell them that it simulates an actual cert exam that is why it is formatted like that.
They then see the chapters that they need to focus on, rather than just a specific subject/topic.

Great insight and feedback, thanks Jarrel!

 

[Rick Butler]

I just took my first CompTIA Exam (Project+) last week

....and how did you do?

 

[Jwehrle]

....and how did you do?

Thanks for checking Rick, I passed! It was my second try, just narrowly missed the first one but glad to get that under my belt!