Introduction
Who knows
why you decide to get certified. Maybe
your employer demands it. Or maybe it’s
just a demonstration of your commitment to your career. Perhaps it increases your salary, or your
value on the job market. Whatever the
case, you’ve gone to the boot camp or done your self-study track, you’ve read
the book and the study guide, you’ve made your flashcards, you’ve taken the
sample tests, you’ve combed the Internet for other resources, and now you’re
going to actually take the test. Here’s
what to expect.
Taking your certification exam
Signing up
will be more difficult than you expect.
These test facilities are low-margin operations. The simple steps to create your account won’t
work. Click submit and the screen
shimmers, refreshes, and you’re back where you started. Open a ticket. Try a different browser. Only when you try a totally different PC will
it work.
When you
show up, they’ll thrust you a dog-eared sheet of rules in a greasy clear
plastic sleeve. You won’t read the rules
because, really, what recourse would you have if you don’t like one of
them? Besides, you’ll mind your own
business and not try to cheat. So you
nod and sign the form. They require two
forms of ID. The instructions here are
unclear: one must be a government-issued
photo ID, the other can be something basic like a credit card, but an example
they give of an acceptable photo ID is your employer-issued work ID. But unless you work for the government, this
doesn’t meet the requirements. The
reason you even worry about it is that your driver’s license, or driver license
(depending on what state you live in), is expired. There is
a rule that it can’t be expired. Do
you lead with the employer-issued ID, then?
No, it doesn’t look official enough.
You hold your breath while the clerk dutifully records the expiration
date of your driver license, without registering the fact that it’s expired.
They’ll ask
you to turn off your electronic device, but you won’t have brought one,
especially not your laptop because you know the lockers are only big enough for
a small purse. They make you take
everything out of your pockets and even remove your watch. You put your personal effects in the little
locker. The key has a giant fob and they
forbid you to put it in your pocket. Then
they make your turn your pockets inside out while standing on the painted clown
feet. Standing there with your pockets
pulled out, you suddenly realize you’re acting out the non-verbal punch line of
a dumb riddle: “Would you rather kiss an
elephant on the trunk or a rabbit between the ears?” Then they make you pull up your sleeves and
your pant legs. You quip, “Nothing up my
sleeves!” in some nonspecific cartoon voice, and to your amazement this gets a
chuckle. You thought these people were
humorless.
Then they will go over you
with the wand, like at the airport, looking for—what?
Weapons? You turn around. “Arms out to the sides.” You will now be looking at a calendar on the wall showing that famous
statue in Rio de Janeiro, Christ the Redeemer, seen from behind, and you’ll realize your acting it out, too.
Certain
rules will be recited to you. “You are
not allowed to visit your locker during breaks,” she will say. She is new and her colleague will correct
her: “No, you actually are.
For medication only, or food, no checking notes or turning on your phone.”
The new person will have the hang of this job in two weeks tops and then
it will get progressively less interesting and rewarding. For now she is going into the actual testing
room to prepare your computer. It is
very quiet in there and there are a dozen video cameras under little domes
attached to the ceiling. It could be
that some of the domes have no camera within them: placebo cameras. There are partitions between the test
stations, like the partitions between urinals in your nicer restrooms.
Of course it
isn’t actually possible to cheat on this kind of test. You will recall with a chuckle how a guy once
tried to read your bluebook during a English Lit final exam. How could he possibly have hoped to gain
enough insight, without the context of your sprawling essay, to improve his
own? Then you’ll recall a really funny
tale one of your professors told you. He
was giving a summer session course on feminist literature. There was one man in this class, an immensely
obese and hairy fellow who always came to class wearing only a Speedo. (This was during the sixties.) He was so fat, the rolls obscured the Speedo
and he appeared to be naked. During the
final exam, the woman seated next to him suddenly became flustered, turned in
her exam after only ten minutes, and left.
Written in her bluebook was: “I
need to talk to you in your office.” She
came to the professor’s office the next day and complained, “That man was
looking at my bluebook. I looked over at
his to see if he was copying off of me, and discovered that he was writing
about my breasts!” The professor
replied, “Well, in fairness, he was actually writing about Gertrude Stein’s
breasts. But it’s okay, you can retake
the exam.”
Lost in this
reverie you almost won’t notice the clerk gesturing to you come over to your
PC. It will be a cheap desktop, sitting
right up on the desk, very old school, and the monitor, though a flat-screen,
will be crooked and cheap and sad. You
will be given two little whiteboards that aren’t boards but just sheets of
plastic, and two greasy dry-erase pens. You
will label these “transparencies” because you will feel a need to classify the
simple objects available to you during the test. But they’re not actually transparencies,
because they’re not transparent.
You must
display your two forms of ID and your key on the desk. It will be too hot in there but when you
remove your sweater you’ll be told to put it back on: “The cameras don’t like extra objects in
their field of view.” Except it might be
a clumsier, or perhaps less clumsy phrase, than “field of view.” You will also be given a little calculator,
which will serve no purpose during the test expect perhaps calculating your
possible score if you know which problems you probably missed, which you won’t.
There will
be a PC tutorial on how to use the multiple-choice test software. It will be emphasized that the sample test
you take will not have any bearing on your score for the actual test, but this
won’t satisfy everybody. Some people
will be sweating bullets and will consider skipping the tutorial. So just in case, the questions in the sample
test will include the answers so you can ace the test and boost your
confidence. The test will be about
astronomy, and you might learn something from it.
During the
actual test the proctor will come stand behind you for minutes at a time. They will have warned you that they reserve the right to do this. You will remember that the rules also stated, in
bold, so you noticed it, that everything you do will be recorded, visually and audio-ly. Is there an equivalent word for “visually” that
connotes sound? Don’t ponder this: the clock is ticking! You’re wasting time!
The test
will be made more difficult by awkwardness in the answers. There are two versions of this
awkwardness: either all four answers
will seem wrong, or more than one will seem right (when only one answer is
allowed). You are forbidden to disclose
any content of the test, as doing so would cause irreparable harm to the
certifying body, harm that no financial compensation can remedy. So I will explain the awkwardness modes via
analogy.
Suppose the
test was evaluating your knowledge of what food is served in Italian
restaurants. The question “What boiled
entree item is most popular?” would have these answers:
A.
Minestrone
B. Spaghetti
C. Noodles
D. Ravioli
You know the
best answer is “pasta,” but that’s not an option. And “spaghetti” is too specific. So it must be “noodles,” but that doesn’t
really cover penne, farfalle, etc. which are not long and ribbon-like. And
doesn’t it technically have to have egg in it to be a noodle?
Or, the
answers will be:
A.
Minestrone
B. Noodles
C.
Alimentary paste
D. Ravioli
You won’t
like “noodles” for the reasons given above, but what the hell is alimentary
paste? That phrase certainly wasn’t in
the book or the training or the sample tests. It is both the correct answer and the weirdest
possible way of expressing it.
Depending on
the test, there may be one more possible scenario: there actually will be two totally correct answers (in this example, pasta and
alimentary paste) but you’re only allowed to choose one, so you literally have
a 50/50 chance of getting it right, and that’s just the way it goes. Your instructor will have warned you about
this.
There will
not be a buzzer you slap when you’re done with the test. The testing software will tell you that you’re done, and a
printer somewhere in the facility will print out your score, but this will not
alert anybody. So you’ll sit there for a
little bit before venturing out of the test room, feeling like you’re doing
something wrong. You’ll be clutching
your greasy transparencies, your giant locker key, and your two forms of ID,
and you will smell like a dog because you’ve sweated so much in your wool
sweater.
There will be congestion in the
lobby area because so many people take these tests. Priority will go to an unfortunate woman who
is checking out to take a break and must be escorted to her locker. She is in a huge hurry; it may be that she is
making for the restroom to throw up. You
will present your items to the clerk who will be visibly flummoxed for some
time before realizing you’re at the wrong desk because you took that other type
of test. You will finally be given your
score printout, which looks like you cooked it up yourself. But they initial it and use this special
stamp to make it official. Because you
didn’t bring anything to the test, you have no folder or bag to put this in, so
you’ll carry it—unfolded because it’s an official document—in your hand when
you walk back across town to your office.
One more
thing: they will not wipe clean your
greasy transparencies, nor had they provided a tissue so you could do
this. They put the transparencies in a
folder. Will somebody analyze your
scribblings later, to determine if you cheated somehow? Or will they scrutinize them as part of a larger
psychological experiment? Could it be that
you only thought you were enhancing your career prospects through this ordeal,
but were actually unwittingly taking part in a study? You will never know.
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