On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 20:22 -0400, G. Matthew Rice wrote:

> I couldn't agree more.  To a point.  However, if an examinee has to look up
> the -l optoin to ls or the -z or -c option to tar, that person doesn't have
> enough real experience.  And that _will_ be reflected in their score.
> 
Agreed, that is very true. If however for example FITB questions about
the specific newsgroup on usenet where one can find Linux information do
still exist in the tests, I think we do mis reality here. And for
example: is it really that important if you don't know that linux
documentation is on tldp.org?

(Disclaimer: I have no knowledge of real test questions, if this looks
like a real test question, that is a pure coincidence)

> That said, LPI tries to avoid testing obscure options to commands.
> 
OK, the people I've proctered the exams for, did have the feeling that
LPI missed that point somehow. If ever LPI decides that the current
questions would need a reality check, I would volunteer for that. 
> 
> > Any alternative that would work? Well, maybe there is. Has anyone of you
> > ever taken a Microsoft test? In their more advanced tests, they have
> > scenario's and try to measure real world knowledge. For example: let's
> > say we want to make a question in which we want to measure knowledge of
> > the tar command. You can go two directions:
> > 
> > I know, asking questions in this way makes LPI 1 easier compared to what
> > it is now.
> 
> Not necessarily.  This is where the psychometrics come in.  If it turns out
> that writing questions in this manner (and there are numerous ones like this,
> especially in LPIC-3 ;)) makes them, overall, easier, it just means that the
> exam taker will have to get more questions correct in order to pass.  Or we
> use more of the hard questions on the exam.
> 
OK, not necessarily. It all depends on the quality of the questions. But
since I'm not familiar with the psychometric process, I may mis a point
here.

> Hmm, perhaps I should start doing a talk on the psychometric process at
> conferences.  A lot of people probably have no idea what is involved.

Agreed. Is it possible to explain it in a few lines?
> 
> Oh, I think that you misunderstood my intent on removing/adding some content
> to the LPIC-1 exams.  I want to remove some of the 'admin' content and move
> it to LPIC-2 and to add more content that is useful for ALL Linux
> professionals on the LPIC-1 level.  Regardless of a person's main use of
> Linux; ubergeek, developer, admin, dba.  I think that LPIC-1 should be a
> starting point for a number of streams/specialties.  Not just an 'admin'
> cert.
> 
How do you see this different from the current approach? Could you give
an example of one such 'admin'-content question and a more generic
content question? (No real examples, just to get the idea)
> 
> > If we *really* want to make LPIC-1 a junior level admin certification, we
> > shouldn't ask about options no one ever uses, we should ask about things
> > that are used in real life. Small scenario questions are so much more real.
> 
> Sander, if there is a question on the exam that asks about an option that is
> rarely used, please send me this information privately and I'll look into it.
> 
Taking my task as a procter rather serious, I haven't seen any of the
questions that were on the exam. Sorry, no real answers here. Will send
a mail to the group of people that I've proctered though. If they have
input, I'll send it directly to you later.

> Keep in mind that one person's 'rarely used' may be someone else's 'often
> used'.  We get that opinion just regularly such as 'why do you both with
> Debian package questions?  The real world only uses RedHat.'  Seriously, we
> get that a lot.
> 
That's why I never understood that we kept the idea of a Debian version
and a Red Hat version behind. Distribution independent shouldn't be the
same as "about all distributions"
> 
> Can you point out the ones that you tried?  I have seen some that completely
> miss the spirit of what LPI is trying to test.  They do go for the esoterica.
> 
I've worked with "ExamSaver"

Regards,
Sander


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