Opinions on and Expriences With Kiosk-Delivered Certification Exams?
Finally got around to knocking-out one of my certifications (changed to a new contract and this customer was a lot more concerned about their SMEs being certified). I opted to do the kiosk-based exam since they offered a lot more scheduling flexibility. Gotta say: it's really nice getting your exam results back in under half a business day!
That said, there were a few things about the kiosk experience that were sub-optimal:
* My test was slated to start on the hour - and we're told in the arrival instructions to be in your seat by a quarter to the hour. I got to my seat well on time. The test delivery, however, wasn't ready on time. It finally allowed me to do the sign-in steps about a minute before the hour, but the automated provisioning of the testing-hosts didn't complete until about seven after the hour.
* The test station, itself, is singularly unsuitable for someone with other than 20/20 vision. The screen was positioned not only closer than either a normal desktop or laptop screen, but closer than I even hold a book or e-reader. I'm far-sighted and wear glasses to correct my vision. Unfortunately, with the stupidly-close positioning of the screen, it placed the screen well inside the optimal focus-distance of my glasses.
* Exacerbating the screen-distance problems was the requirement to wear a headset: the chord on the headset prevented me from pushing my seat back to get to the point where I could view the screen without major eye-strain. This would have been merely annoying, had the headset actually been used for anything, but, all of the proctor interaction was done via an onscreen chat interface. So, why the requirement to wear a headset that restricted my movement?
* While the chat tool is a nice idea (especially for asking the proctor "what's up with the testing session not being ready on time"), it chews up precious screen realestate. Given that the exams require creating configurations that closely adhere to the exam specifications. it's helpful to be able to have the instructions appear side-by-side with the system-item that you're configuring. With the screen size of the testing kiosk and the fixed-frame layout of the work and proctoring-tool areas, an already not large screen effectively became like working on a 13", 4:3 monitor. Meant that couldn't effectively do side-by-side specification/system work
My question is, are these kiosks all this poorly implemented or was I just "lucky"?
Responses
Hi all. I checked this thread before I took the EX300 exam, which gladly I passed. So, I came here to leave my impressions with the KOALA system. O had a Lenovo P70 in front of me, after the introduction made by the tutor, we were just the online supervisor and me. There was no such delay when pressing the keys in the virtual machines. I was able to accomplish everything without any problem. The only issue, and a very big one, is that you must be carefull with the web shortcuts (at the beggining the online supervisor warns you by the way) about ctrl+w or ctrl+t, because the web console you get is a browser window, and you can accidentally close it, as it happened to me when I was trying to edit a file using vim and pushed the wrong key combinations. Also, I had no problems at all when using vi, pressing the Esc key nor when I used the vim shortuts. This was in Chile, so, I guess maybe in your countries situations may be different.
Community Member
58 points
Took RHCSA a few weeks ago and was disappointed. The Preparation courses (RH124/RH134) were excellent for covering the material but fell flat for preparing one for the EX200 exam.
Big question: Was I supposed to have access to a desktop session on the machine I was configuring? The Red Hat provided training (RH124/RH134) focused on the GUI process (can't be more specific). Without a desktop session on the exam, I was forced to attempt procedures via command line for the first time ever. After the exam, I wondered if I was supposed to have had access to a desktop session - maybe I missed the icon that would have brought it up?
Minor question: Is there a place I can practice procedures in the actual environment I will be testing in? The preparation courses (RH124/RH134) are not even close.
I have many successful years in the computer field and have taken many certification exams by many different vendors. Red Hat's Exam process is more of a crapshoot than a certification exam should be.
Expert
823 points
I took EX200 a couple of years ago (RHEL 7.0 version). It was the only cert. exam I've ever taken that I had to re-take to pass (after 25+ years of experience in the industry). Much more rigorous than the multiple-choice b.s. that used to be sufficient for many certs. I took that as a good sign that Red Hat certifications are more meaningful than, say, a "Sun Certified Solaris System Administrator" (a credential which I also have, and which was mostly meaningless even when Sun/Solaris was still a viable platform).
I found it well-matched to the class, but I did not take the RH1xx classes - I took the self-paced (Book + lab VM only) version of a 2xx class (245? 254?) that was a "fast-track" combined RHCSA + RHCSE for experienced admins. IIRC, that textbook instructions for that class were almost 100% command-line based, little or no GUI at all (the GUI for NetworkManager may have come up but most of the network instruction was around 'nmcli' instead, with maybe a little "nmtui").
If you need a GUI/Desktop environment...like everything else on the exam, it's up to you to make it work.
For practice, try installing a VM with the @base package group only, then boot it up & learn how to get to a usable GUI from there (actually much harder than exam conditions, but more useful to know in the long run).
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