John sat his exam a few weeks ago..and i was a chicken and booked in for the last available day of the Beta round.
This was the first ever Beta exam I’ve ever sat so it was quite different. Usually i buy a book that has the best rating on Amazon readit, take notes and usually learn something. Then I usually have Transcender exams to give me the flavour of the questions and to see which areas i need to go learn more about. Even with this, I never do particually fantasic..as i find most questions memory oriented e.g. what namespace is this in..and my memory sux.
So this was a completely different experience. I had some broad topics areas that the exam covered, the VE API, Map Point API, and the Map Cruncher site and that’s it.
At the exam, I had some fun with the machine..had to get the exam restarted a few times cause buttons were missing etc. but eventually i was on my way. The room was sooo cold the mouse was bashing on the desk from me shivering so much…I ended up only putting in a few comments cause i just couldn’t stand the cold anymore.
There’s still A LOT of mulitple choice, memory-oriented questions but this exam had quite a few interactive questions that are a lot more process oriented…liked these a lot better and really think there should be heaps more of thistype.
There’s heaps of Map Point questions and almost think the title of the exam should be VE/MP developing.
So overall, I think i’m pretty borderline, and am fully expecting to fail, but it was free which does actually make it less stressful than “doing your $180”. I’m not a hard core VE person like John so will be interesting to see how we go..if we get that much detaill? We’ll find out in 8 weeks if we passed.