I actually took the MS-SQL tests (the for pay ones) when a company I was working with wanted to assess them for hiring a DBA. I thought they were pretty awful -- not hard, just not very good. The way the scores are reported makes it pretty clear that there's not a smooth bell curve to the reponses but a sharp spike, which means most people score right about the same and a few questions right or wrong from this avg number drastically shift the score to very low or very high. So for example, everyone answers around 30 of the 60, so if you answer 27, you might get a ranking of 1.5 on a 5 scale, while answering 30 gives you a 3 and 33 gives you a 5. Not very discriminating except for very good and very bad.
And none of the tests we tried really tested SQL really well -- just the basics. They all had a lot of admin. Things like "When upgrading an Oracle database to MS-SQL blah blah blah". Wow, that's useful. I had *much* better luck with a few simple ER diagrams and an increasingly difficult series of queries to run against them -- something like: 1) basic join and sort 2) group by an aggregate 3) many-to-many join requiring outer join 4) turn 1-3 into a view 5) turn 1-3 into simple stored proc 6) use one of the view in 4 to create a stored proc etc Of course this was for a reporting-oriented position. Regards, John Paul Ashenfelter CTO/TransitionPoint ----- Original Message ----- From: "Costas Piliotis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 4:35 PM Subject: RE: SQL Competency Test > http://www.brainbench.com/ > > These guys I believe have one for free... Pretty tough one too on sql > theory actually... > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Sueltenfuss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 12:26 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: OT: SQL Competency Test > > > > Good Afternoon, > > > > Does anyone know of a free SQL Competency test available? I am looking > > for one to give to job applicants, to determine their level of > > knowledge > > > > Thanks in advance > > > > Dave Sueltenfuss > > Application Developer > > Certified ColdFusion MX Developer > > Arch Wireless > > Phone: 508-870-6711 > > Fax: 508-870-8011 > > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. http://www.cfhosting.com Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
