dhecker, I totally see your point. I think that was my first impression with ICCP and Bird Publications. Bought one subject from the latter last year and had some hassle with the delivery (website was still working but the download link wasn't, finally got the material via email).
After much procrastination, I finally took my first exam, the C Programming Language. The whole process was pretty straightforward and very convenient. I must admit that I was skeptical at first. I filled the form and faxed it to their office to register for the 3 subjects I needed. The next day, I receive a confirmation message with a receipt attached and instructions on how to schedule the exams. I called to set the first appointment. They asked me if I had a proctor ready so I mentioned that I had inquired before about their webcam/microphone proctoring and would like to use that option if possible. The lady I spoke with was very helpful and cooperative, she confirmed my appointment and told me that I should get a link a day before the exam.
As promised, I got the link by email. The online proctoring uses a conferencing website (
http://www.elluminate.com). The exam is provided as a remote session with the exam obviously running at ICCP's end. If you've ever taken their sample exams, it's the same program. The interface is a bit dated but functional nonetheless. Navigation was easy with a permanent toolbar that allowed direct access to any question number, when needed. The only thing that really lacked, or I should say I didn't notice was the ability to mark questions for review (I was so focused on beating the exam in the allotted time I didn't really get to explore). I think they have a free sampler on their website which can help in building familiarity. The C Programming Language exam had 66 questions to be answered in 60 minutes. The questions had four possible answers to choose from. You can either click on the answer of your choice directly or select its letter from the toolbar at the top of the remote screen.
I would say that the test content distribution was faithful to the description in the Complete ICCP guide. A lot of questions on Pointers and Arrays, Structures, Functions, Flow Control and iterations, Expression evaluation and Operators, some I/O and standard library functions. I felt the time was just right (finished in 55 minutes). I remember I found it a bit difficult to focus and work out the programs in the beginning. The presentation of the routines didn't help as well. From what I recall, there was rarely much formatting and indentation in the code presented which made it a little more difficult to understand. I think I also felt a little anxious at first as I wasn't sure how this was all going to work out. There was a bit of a lag in response to mouse clicks, but that's understandable considering the physical distance. I found scrolling through some of the screens (on longer questions) to be slow.
I think I underestimated this exam. Although some questions were straightforward, I would rate the majority of questions as moderate to tough. If you're a seasoned C programmer, you shouldn't have any problem taking the exam cold or with a little brushing up. I'm no stranger to programming but I've been out of practice for a long time, I did some teaching and some coding in my past, most of it in languages that are extinct nowadays (anyone remembers Forth?), very little in C (small routines). I chose this language as I thought it would cover less details than C++ (with its object oriented components), but I guess it actually had a more in-depth focus on other aspects of the C language, so I can't really say the C exam would be easier than C++. I'm assuming BASIC would've been an easier but I wanted something a little more advanced on my transcript.
I prepared for 5 days, studying from 2 to 4 hours a day. I knew that I was walking in without having all the topics covered (I/O functions, and of course the elusive C Language precedence and associations issues). Although there were many questions involving precedence and expression evaluation, I'm happy to say the test wasn't as 'mean' as it could have been in that area. I think it was only fair as I think it is rare, even for experienced programmers, to master and fully memorize C's precedence rules, most programmers would manage by avoiding ambiguous coding. I used C's bible, K&R's The C Programming Language, second edition as my main prep material. According to ICCP, elements not in that book are not tested. Of course, there's an abundance of excellent resources online covering the subject. I supplemented with this online book from time to time:
The C Book - Table of Contents
There were moments in the exam when I wasn't sure I was going to make it, but I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that I had scored 90% at the end. The lady who was proctoring my exam asked me if I wanted to send the score report to an academic institution as I had originally indicated on my registration form that I'm taking the exams for college credit. I was happy to see that they were prepared for it, I thought I would have to go through the process of calling and asking for that service. When I mentioned that I would like to send the results to Excelsior College, she told me that she has the school's details and asked me if I liked to include my student ID number.
Subject difficulty aside, I would say it was a very comfortable process, start to finish. I think if only they'd update their website, perhaps include online exam ordering and scheduling (not that phone ordering/scheduling was a problem), and perhaps improve the test interface a little, these exams would become a lot more popular than they currently are.
A little technical note about the delivery website. I had to add
https://sas.elluminate.com to the list of trusted websites in Internet Explorer for it to work properly. You may also have to launch IE as administrator if you're running Windows Vista (right-click and select 'Run as administrator'). Firefox works as well. The website requires a recent version of Java to be installed. You can visit this page to test your computer's readiness:
eLearning Technical Support | Elluminate Inc.
If your Java checks out, click Configuration Room to test the software (ICCP recommends that you use that link before attempting the exam to test compatibility and setup your audio settings).
I'll post back here when Excelsior receives the results.
Next exam in two weeks is Systems Development, wish me luck...
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