RANT: Professionalism

[at2marty]

I need to obtain a qualification in my current job (CompTIA Security+).  Fortunately, there are books available to me to read and understand the material.  I have been reading the books, studying and learning the material.  I have a notebook that I use to write down stuff that I need to remember or study further.  Part of my study routine is to take my hand written notes, research them online, then make notes on my computer with references that I can go back to later if needed.

I have been approached by several "senior" people in my workplace, some of them supervisors suggesting that I use some of the "cheats" available online.  They tell me that this is what they used to pass the test.      The "cheats" are basically the test questions, and it's suggested that I just memorize the answers.  A couple even told me that they failed the test the first time and had to take it a second time.

I have a real problem with that.  The purpose of a test, especially to earn a certification or qualification is to see if the candidate has the knowledge required to hold the certification or qualification.  I don't want to just "memorize answers to questions", I want to know the answers to the questions based on my knowledge.  I refuse to just "memorize answers" to certain questions.  If I pass the test and earn the certification, I want it to be because I know the material.

It both amazes me and pisses me off that people senior to me in my workplace hold qualifications/certifications that they didn't earn.  What really burns me up is that the workplace gives us the material to actually learn the content, yet these people chose to take the cheating (easy) route in order to obtain their credentials.

It makes me wonder how many so-called "professionals" or "engineers" are out there in the workforce that are in their position based on their credentials obtained by simply "memorizing" answers to test questions.

[c4757p]

If they're supposed to need those qualifications for their jobs, they need to be fired, out of a cannon.

[kony]

What if I told you, that most of the scholar systems boils down exactly to this (memorising just the right answers for test)?

Totally twisted? Perhaps. But really not uncommon at all, unfortunatelly .

[George_Race]

You are an exceptional person, wanting to earn your certification the hard way, by actually passing your exam based on your education!  Congratulations, you are one in a big bunch, and I admire your passion to do it the right way.

I am in my 80th year and can still remember my wife carrying around my Gherardi Q & A Manual as I tried to learn all that was needed to get my First Class Phone ticket.  At the end of the 7 hour written exam, the first time I got my Second Class.  Went back in 6 months and got my First Class in about 4 hours of time in the tablet arm chair at the Detroit MI branch of the FCC.  A couple of years later I got my Amateur Extra Class in the same room, passing my 20 WPM code test and several written exams.

Within a few years there were books out that had the complete exam, question by question, and it became easy to memorize all the Q & A for the exams.  Since that time, both the FCC Commercial and Amateur Radio exams have almost become a joke.  All you need to do is listen on the Ham Bands and you can hear the results!

Stick to your guns, and you will go far in your professional life.  And to top it off, you WILL know what you are doing and saying is based on your study and experience.  You will go far, and gain the respect of your peers

All the best,
George - WB8BGY.

[Wilksey]

Unfortunately that is the way of the world!

I have a friend who worked in a particular company, another of our friends went for an interview with the same company for a similar position (senior software engineering) and he basically told him what to memorise for the interview, and what questions would be asked as he was asked the same questions as on his interview, similar in principal.

[Nerull]

Its CompTIA. It exists to make managers happy. The tests are completely irrelevant to anything you will ever do and are worse than useless - they're often wrong.

[corrado33]

I love the ad at the bottom of the page says "Free (some test) exam prep with practice exams" 

Unfortunately this is the way education is now-a-day.

The really scary part is that this is how high schoolers are taught to study for things like MCATs and GREs. (Those are our future doctors and scientists.)

Generally, if a high schooler's parents have money, then can pass whatever type of exam they want. All they need to know is the questions asked and how they're supposed to answer them. That's not hard to find now-a-day.
(BTW, I know this from first hand experience. I took an MCAT prep course online. They didn't teach you the material, they taught you how to make good "guesses." It was bullshit. They tell you things like "it's better to not answer questions you don't know because they won't count against you". That may not be true now, but it's one thing they told me. Crap that a normal person would never know.

Another first hand experience for me. I went to school with a girl in college (university for you non-Americans) She was in our "honors" science courses, but consistently did the worst in the class. The CRIED on every exam and probably only passed because the teacher felt bad for her. She then dropped the honors courses the next year.

She is now a dentist.

I took the MCATs. I know how hard they were. I was at the top of those honors classes. I know there's no way in hell she passed the dentistry exams without a shit ton of "expensive" help. Turned out that her mom and dad were very wealthy.

[Zero999]

If the test is that easy to pass and all the questions and answers can be found on line, then it's not a very respectable qualification.

You probably won't learn much anyway, so just do what you need to do to pass. See it as a box ticking exercise.

[Galenbo]

...I need to obtain a qualification in my current job (CompTIA Security+).
...some of them supervisors suggesting that I use some of the "cheats" available online. 
...The "cheats" are basically the test questions, and it's suggested that I just memorize the answers.
...I have a real problem with that. 

You should have a problem with the bad way this test is made, and that your company uses this worthless results.
There are scientifically proven ways to develop questions for a test where this level of cheating is impossible.

The purpose of a test, especially to earn a certification or qualification is to see if the candidate has the knowledge required to hold the certification or qualification.

It's not up to you to decide what the purposes of such test are.
It's up to you to take part or not, and to decide to cheat or study.
Both ways have their advantages, honesty and rendability are not on the same side. Try to know what is appreciated more.

If I pass the test and earn the certification, I want it to be because I know the material.

It's a 2-dimensional thing here. You can also know the material and fail the test, there are 4 possibilities.
But in the normal situation you will archieve 2 things: Receive a congratulation AND you know the material.
That knowledge is maybe needed for the next test. I hope it's a better one.

It makes me wonder how many so-called "professionals" or "engineers" are out there in the workforce that are in their position based on their credentials obtained by simply "memorizing" answers to test questions.

It's not simple to memorise aswers instead of understanding, especially if you are intense enthousiast and motivated. But sometimes you get into situations where you have no choice.
That's where succesful managers are good at: Knowing fast what is important, estimate the minimum effort for it, spend the 98% rest of your time on other important things.

 

[at2marty]

What if I told you, that most of the scholar systems boils down exactly to this (memorising just the right answers for test)?

Totally twisted? Perhaps. But really not uncommon at all, unfortunatelly .

Unfortunately you are right.  Steve Wozniak talked about that in an interview that I watched.

You should have a problem with the bad way this test is made, and that your company uses this worthless results.
There are scientifically proven ways to develop questions for a test where this level of cheating is impossible.

It makes me wonder how many so-called "professionals" or "engineers" are out there in the workforce that are in their position based on their credentials obtained by simply "memorizing" answers to test questions.

It's not simple to memorise aswers instead of understanding, especially if you are intense enthousiast and motivated. But sometimes you get into situations where you have no choice.
That's where succesful managers are good at: Knowing fast what is important, estimate the minimum effort for it, spend the 98% rest of your time on other important things.

It's not my company's decision regarding the qualification.  I am government contractor, and it was mandated by our government (DOD) to get certified to a certain level.  I already posses the A+, Network+ and Linux+ certifications.  Those were all pretty easy for me since I have been working with computers and Unix-like Operating Systems for the last 25 years or so.  I'm pretty confident that I could pass the Security+ exam right now with no problem, but I would rather go over the material that the exam covers to be sure.

Here is the really crazy part though.  The bulk of my job is more electronics/electrical related rather than computer related.  Sure the equipment is all computer driven, but the bulk of it is all I/O and peripherals.  To get a better understanding of what I do, I maintain aircraft trainers/simulators.  An example of what I typically do happened just today.  A digital input wasn't working correctly (a switch on the aircraft console).  I looked at the drawings, did some troubleshooting and narrowed it down to a faulty relay on a circuit board.  I replaced the relay and got the system working again.  Now how does having the above qualifications show that I have the knowledge and capability to do that?      There is an answer to that, but I can't really expand on that.

That being said though, if it's something that I need to do to keep my job, I'll do it.  My rant was mainly because of my personality I guess.  I was always taught to learn the material, take a test and get graded on what I learned.  Simply memorizing answers to questions is not learning.

[CatalinaWOW]

One value of memorizing the test answers is that you are then using the answer they want to hear, which is at least occasionally different from the correct answer.  I personally endorse starting by learning the material so that you won't make a fool of yourself using your credential (and so you will know your limitations), and then reviewing the questions and answers.  By knowing the material first you will quickly recognize the bloopers and ambiguous situations where you might go wrong based on your knowledge.  You only have to memorize these few oddities.

[Neganur]

Unfortunately tests are made like this. And some of the questions are also more about that you read the task properly than the actual content: i.e. 3 questions are "which answer is correct" the following one "which statement is false" etc. Do yourself the favour and use the internet material to train yourself to be able to answer the questions quickly. It is not cheating if you use it to drill your memory.

Consider it your course material. The matter (what the course is about) is not a secret and certain problems are always the same pattern. It's just the nature of things. At universities it is not uncommon to use last years' exam as exercise exam. So nothing stops you from learning those by heart - of course numbers will change but methods or general concepts don't and there is no shame in learning methods by heart.

[at2marty]

What ever happened to actually learning the material rather than learning how to take a test?  I must be getting old because I have always thought that a test was about seeing if you know the subject.

[Rick Law]

What ever happened to actually learning the material rather than learning how to take a test?  I must be getting old because I have always thought that a test was about seeing if you know the subject.

Where there is money, there is going to be cheaters to cheating to get the money.

In Atlanta, Georgia (the US State, not the country) 10 teachers (and or admin staff) were convicted of changing student answers so the student get a higher score -- which in turn get them better salary.  This scheme according to news report involved 200-300, just this 10 got caught with an easily provable case.  9 are sentenced to jail time.

That said, some kind of certification is not necessarily a bad thing.  You want to know "the guy designing the bridge" isn't because he is just a classmate of the wife of the one in charge.  You want to know the guy can really do the job.

[kony]

What ever happened to actually learning the material rather than learning how to take a test?  I must be getting old because I have always thought that a test was about seeing if you know the subject.

Not in times, where almost a college diploma becomes a meaningless paper you can just put on your wall or wrap your lunch in...

So many times I questioned myself, if is it my knowledge and ability to cope with some problem tested, or just capacity of my short-term memory. And quite often the answer was memory. 

Also, students in almost all cases blindly follow only grades, not knowledge - and you can be sure they will use the easiest approach possible (well, easiest if you have good memory). Most of them will realise it too late. And when there is no self-interest in topic of your study, then too bad.

And with things like grades inflation and ever vanishing common sense and applied logic in place, I call the scholar system generally broken.

BTW: The most talented self-taughts I know of actually in several cases dropped willingly from college just for the reasons stated above. It is also interesting, that many of them are now involved in science and technology propagation (and making better resources for newly incomming self-taughts).

Fortunatelly for us, in the end - it is the "show what you can do" that counts.

[Neganur]

I share your opinion about those exams. But look at it from this perspective: you are not gaining anything by not taking advantage of the situation.
You only lose. Why would you willingly get a potentially worse grade (not necessarily ofc!) than someone who is really just learning the questions by heart?

This is a very good example where 'being honest' gets you nothing. You're not getting a medal.

Not sure how people around the world get their driver's license, but in Germany there's a catalogue of multiple choice questions. Out of this pool of lets say 4000 questions you get 50 for your exam, and you have all the time in the world to prepare and practice those 4000 questions. Is that cheating?

Is there not also a similar catalogue of questions for HAM licenses?

[kony]

I share your opinion about those exams. But look at it from this perspective: you are not gaining anything by not taking advantage of the situation.
You only lose. Why would you willingly get a potentially worse grade (not necessarily ofc!) than someone who is really just learning the questions by heart?

If this was pointed to me, then honestly I don't give a damn. Give me whatever grade to pass - if I don't care about that subject, then i don't care, if I do, I'll study it most likely much more deeper than what is required for me - and grades will most likely reflect that (as a side product).

[Rick Law]

That white karate garment and the black belt around the waist of the wearer tells you right off the bat that he can probably out-punch an average person of similar built.  Probably.

Grades and certificates both put a gauge on expected abilities of the grade/certificate holder.

Someone like Bruce Lee, the legend that he was, he would probably out punch a typical black-belt karate guy.  But with the Chinese ku-fu stuff, they don't wear something to advertise nor do they quantify.  So, if you need to pick a wing-man to go with you to a bar fight, you have a surer bet taking the black-belt guy as your wing man than the other Chinese guy who may know nothing about holding fist let alone punch.

Employers and contractor are in the same shoes.  They are taking you on without knowing much about you, so a certification while not always indicative, is at least something.

[zapta]

What ever happened to actually learning the material rather than learning how to take a test?  I must be getting old because I have always thought that a test was about seeing if you know the subject.

That's the intention but like most metrics, people find unintended ways to maximize the score.  That's life.

[free_electron]

If they're supposed to need those qualifications for their jobs, they need to be fired, out of a cannon.

PREFERREBLY AFTER SETTING THEM ON FIRE FIRST.

[pickle9000]

If they're supposed to need those qualifications for their jobs, they need to be fired, out of a cannon.

PREFERREBLY AFTER SETTING THEM ON FIRE FIRST.

Into a brick wall.

[nanofrog]

If they're supposed to need those qualifications for their jobs, they need to be fired, out of a cannon.

PREFERREBLY AFTER SETTING THEM ON FIRE FIRST.

Into a brick wall.

I like how you guys think!   

[SeanB]

Not a brick wall, but a concrete wall built to military specs. One part gravel, one part sand, one part high strength cement, with steel reinforcing every 15cm buried at 15cm under the surface. I have seen that survive unscathed, the vehicle collapsed to half it's length.

[magetoo]

If the test is that easy to pass and all the questions and answers can be found on line, then it's not a very respectable qualification.

It is almost as if the business model is cranking out as many certifications as possible (and making as much money as possible), not testing knowledge.

[con-f-use]

Well I've done alot of useless, very specific tests that did not actually test my qualifications but rather my ability to memorize unimportant details. If I encounter a test that has that problem, I weasel my way around it. If I think its a sensible test, and I might actually learn something useful that will prevail in my brain, I study in a similar fashion as you do. It don't know which kind of test yours was, but I can understand both approaches. It depends on the circumstances. I don't want to waste my time on useless stuff that is "required" by some authority but has nothing to do with what I do or want to do in the future.

When I started to work at my University, they made us take a teaching class. It was basically just "a hundred ways to pin colored paper to a whiteboard". They asked us about method 58 and 74 in the test. Does that make me a better teacher? Not to speak of endless varieties of IT training, safety qualifications and public speaking drills.

It's not unprofessional to be efficient and there is a lot of qualification testing that just qualifies you to sit in a chair. But I'm assuming your qualification test was actually important, so fire their burning asses into solid brick.