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Test Preparation

Page history last edited by Ellen Markey 13 years, 10 months ago

Hi everyone,

Sorry I missed the closing ceremony last night.  I don't think I have any real words of wisdom, but Deb asked me to share my experience with taking the test.

 

So here goes.  What you need to know about me first:

  • I've been doing this (WLP) for 23 years
  • Have a Masters in HRD (1991)
  • Have worked in virtually every AOE on the test at some point in my career
  • Recently (12/08) took the SPHR certification exam.
  • I am very slightly dyslexic - hence why I never read outloud on any of your calls.
  • I am the world's most decisive person (to a fault)
  • My major attitude when taking on new challenges is "how hard can it be???"
  • I am not a visual learner...definitely auditory, learn the most from group discussions.  If I were better at Kolb I'd tell you what style that is.  
    • OK, for those of you out there, which style is it??  Ha!
  • I ran a study group, participated in yours and one other on a somewhat regular basis, spent the money and did the virtual boot camp prep from the Owl's Ledge, did the CPLP prep course from ASTD... and studied a lot.  I had the learning system, cd, flashcards, etc.  Plus I bought three recommended books (remember I don't like to read -- those never got opened....don't tell the hubby).
  • I learned a ton from researching things I found interesting and posting them to the wikis and such.
  • I started studying back in September of last year. 
  • Oh, and one more critical factor.  I have around $4,000 of my OWN money in this thing.  No one has paid for the conferences, test, etc. 

 

All that being said, I'll bet you think I am going to say the exam was a piece of cake.  Nope.  Not by a long shot.

 

For those of you who haven't taken this kind of exam in a while, you should be aware of a couple things.

  • You are videotaped, get three pieces of paper and two pencils, no gum, no water, etc.  As you probably guessed I'm a pretty self-assured person and the videotape thing was a little weird even for me.
  • There are 25-30 experimental questions on the test that do not count toward your score.  They aren't marked as experimental and you have no idea when they will appear in the test.
    • I swear I probably got 4-5 of them in the first 10 questions, so I was thinking "do I know anything about this stuff?" 
    • The same thing happened on the SPHR to me and it's a little freaky.  Just make your best guess, mark them to review and move on.   
    • I swear the last 10 questions were the easiest in the test.  Don't let it freak you out.
  • One more thing you should know is that everyone's suggestions about the "brain dump", taking all the time, etc. didn't work for me.  I know my learning style enough to know that would have made me more stressed.  I didn't do any of those things, but had a colleague who filled up all three pages of her paper before she started and found it to be very helpful.

 

OK, here's the part that will surprise you..... I thought the test was much more knowledge-based and less application based than I thought it would be.  (Keep in mind I've been doing it forever).   Many many others have said just the opposite, so I'd go with that if you're using this as a baseline.  I think I only had a handful of scenario questions.  There were definitely questions that related back to specific people - which the candidate bulletin says there are not supposed to be.  They might have been experimental, but it was kind of weird. 

 

A CPLP I know said to me before I started the process that the thing she had the most trouble with on the test was that not only did you have to understand how adults learn, but you had to know the five basic principles and know that its called ______ and was created by _________ and how his work on adult learning differs and complements the work of ________ and her model of ________.    Um, Yeah.  It's kind of like that.

 

I feel like I'm probably overwhelming some of you right now,  I don't mean to...I'm just trying to articulate my experience.

 

Bottom line.  I did well.  For the 9 AOEs I got something like 1 perfect score, 2 in the 90s, 3 in the 80s, 2 in the 70s and 1 - here it comes.... a 55!!!!!  :( 

What surprised me was that I did the worst on HPI...which is one of my more knowledgeable subjects.  One of my cohorts got a 55 on that area too... so I'm thinking there might be some advice I can pass along there.

  • If I had to do it all again, I would look at the question and see if there is any way it could be referring to an intervention that was not about knowledge and skills....and I'd assume it was HPI.  That's just me.  When I got that score, I realized that many of the questions that were probably HPI I was thinking "this answer is Perfect if it's referring to training, and this one is good for HPI", so I overthought it and chose the training answer in some cases by mistake I am sure.
  • Just really take your time on questions and look at it from the angle of "could this be an hpi question?".  By the way, on the pretests I scored in the 90s on HPI....so don't let that deter you from really reading the question.

 

I got done with the test in an hour and 20 minutes, and that included going back and reviewing the 25 questions that I had marked.  Keep in mind, I'm very decisive and very fast paced....so that strategy won't work for most.  Of the ones I marked, I went back and changed 3 maybe 4.  Guess what, I changed them all from the right to the wrong answer.  When in doubt, go with your first response (when you've got free time if you haven't had a chance you should read "Blink")

 

Your study group was very helpful because it was very focused on the ASTD content.  I think that everyone will do just fine -- because I felt that a lot of the material came out of the books.  Again, I know that my opinion is in the minority of everything I have read.  I would recommend NOT cramming the days before the test.  I spent time working on things that I knew I wasn't comfortable with still -- you'll see my crazy little slogans in the WIKI.... I had to come up with a way that I could remember them.  Being an auditory learner, I listened to a webcast each night before falling asleep.  I think that helped a lot.  I also went and revisited sites like BusinessBalls and such to review anything I needed clarification on.  If I had to do it again, I would have reviewed the flashcards one more time.  I think I only went through them once.

 

I totally blew off studying the day before.  I took it the day after memorial day so I didn't go home for the holiday weekend to see the hubby and dogs (they are still in Peoria, haven't moved yet), and spent the time resting, watching TV, going and researching something, then cleaning the apartment, etc.   One helpful hint that someone gave me is that you should go through each AOE and think "what are the two or three key areas of this module"  For example, designing learning might be ADDIE, Learning theories, and Writing Objectives.   Focus on those ... you can't learn everything in the 1800 pages. 

 

 

OK, ready for the good news.  Of the people in my study groups who have taken the test, we have all passed.  Every one of us.   This includes the group I ran, and the one other than yours that I joined, as well as the Owl's Ledge cohorts.  Remember that in the beginning I said I had a lot of my own time and money in this thing.... Failure to me was not an option.  I was really nervous the week before, but taking the time to address specific areas that I was unsure about really helped.

 

Final words of wisdom...don't make it harder than it has to be.  Go with your gut.  If you don't know it - choose an answer and mark it and come back to it.  If you're still not sure, stay with the answer you chose.  Keep in mind that it is possible, obviously, to FAIL one part that counts for 15% (HPI in my case) and still pass the test.  Hey, I never said I was perfect!

 

Throughout it all, the best thing that has come out of this is how much I've learned and the great, wonderfully-supportive community of practice in which we work.  Please let me know how you do, and feel free to reach out to me if I can help in any way. 

 

Thanks again for letting me be a part of your group.  It definitely contributed to my success.     I'll be sending you strong thoughts :)  Ellen

 

 

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