Effective
Study Skills: Adaptive exams
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Continued from previous section: Mulitple choice exams
See also:
Setting
the mood - The Studying Area
Preparing
for the exam
Developing
your own study method
During
the exam
Adaptive
exams
A
number of vendors have changed the way that they test candidates
from a fixed number of questions to an ‘adaptive’
process. The very phrase seems to cause a flurry of discussion
on various newsgroups when the term is mentioned. I’m not
sure of the reason why people seem so frightened of the concept,
but I suspect the majority of that fear comes from people who
aren’t really prepared to study for an exam and prefer instead
to try to braindump their way through. Computer Adaptive Testing
- CAT – is nothing to be afraid of. Adaptive testing really
does have it’s benefits for all concerned.
Firstly we need to understand just what an adaptive exam is. As
opposed to a normal fixed-number-of-questions exam, an adaptive
test uses as few focused questions as possible to assess a candidate's
ability. Each question is reliant on the answers given to the
questions before it, and the number of questions that a candidate
has to answer will vary depending on the number of correct answers.
The more incorrect answers the candidate offers, the more questions
the candidate will have to answer. An adaptive exam bases each
new question on the candidate's response to the previous question.
The adaptive exam's first question is normally of medium difficulty.
If you answer that question correctly then the next question will
be slightly more difficult. If you answer that question incorrectly,
the next question is less difficult. This process is repeated
for the rest of the exam. The number of questions that you have
to answer will depend on the number of correct or incorrect answers
that you give. The more you get right, the fewer questions you’ll
have to answer. The more you get incorrect, the more you’ll
have to do. One thing to bear in mind however is that you may
still have to answer more questions even if you’re doing
well in the exam so far. So don’t take it as a bad sign
just because you have to answer, say, 28 out of 30 questions.
It would be easy in a situation like that to start stressing once
you get to the early to middle 20’s thinking that you might
have failed. I’ve had a number of adaptive exams where I’ve
had to answer up to 27 questions and still came out with a very
high passing score.
One of the most important aspects about an adaptive test as opposed
to a fixed exam is that you cannot go back and change your answers
in an adaptive exam. As each subsequent question is based on the
answer you give to the question before it, going back to change
an answer is impossible. Thus, you need to read each question
carefully and be sure of your answer before going on to the next
question.
One of the reasons that a number of vendor’s are moving
to adaptive testing is to safeguard a particular exam’s
integrity. Many, many people use braindumps to obtain their certifications,
and fixed exams lend themselves to the sharing of information
by exam candidates. With adaptive testing, candidates are asked
fewer questions and each question is posed based on the answer
a particular candidate gives. Thus the chances of Candidate A
receiving the same questions that Candidate B had are reduced
significantly.
Tips
for handling an adaptive exam:
-
Don’t try to second-guess the level of difficulty of the
questions that you are getting. In other words, don’t
try to assert if the next question you get is more difficult
than the last one in order to determine if you are on the right
track. In fact, don’t stress about the last question at
all. Once you press the button for the next question, forget
about the last one and move on.
-
DO NOT rely on braindumps to get through. You may get lucky
and pass by braindumping but the amount of effort you’ll
need to braindump all possible questions is probably more than
if you just learn the material in the first place.
-
Don’t worry if you start to approach the maximum number
of questions in the exam. The important thing is to maintain
your concentration and to ensure that you answer as many questions
correctly as you can. Just because there might only be a handful
of questions remaining, doesn’t necessarily mean that
you’re not doing well in the exam. Don’t let your
mind wander and start stressing out.
-
Do not, under any circumstances, deliberately answer the early
questions incorrectly in an effort to get easier questions thereafter.
That’s an extremely foolhardy approach, and you’ll
be dicing with failure should you attempt that technique.
Good
luck with your studies!
DOC
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