I have just got a response from Cisco about the CID Beta:
...
Thank you for patiently waiting for the CID (641-520) Beta results. The
results will be available on 4/9/2001.
All score reports will be mailed to the candidates directly from the testing
vendor.
...
So it would appear that the wait is nearly over!
Dave.
""F.G.J. Ruiz-Alaniz"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I think that Novell has the best grasp on things out of all the
> certification programs (too bad they have never invested the same
> level of foresight into their marketing department).
>
> They first do an alpha test for a new course. When the results come
> in they can weed out obviously confusing and ambiguous questions
> without having to deal with a curve. One time I had one with at least
> 8 stupid typos, and more than a few really screwed up questions, none
> of which made it to the beta. No one gets any certification credit
> for the alpha since it's never graded, but it gives us a heads up on
> what the exam objectives are like.
>
> Sometime between two and six weeks, depending on how well the alpha
> was put together, they publish the beta. There they follow pretty
> much the same procedures everyone else does to curve an exam. I've
> always found their beta exams to be of a higher quality because of the
> extra step.
>
> Another thing they do differently is they will revise each product
> exam with a new test version and go through the beta process again. I
> hope Cisco will be revising their exams every couple of years, since
> that's how often they want us to recertify. The other option is
> horrible.
>
> I don't think it's right how everyone's favorite monopoly does it, by
> shoving in a couple of raw, often times, ambiguous, badly written
> questions in the middle of someone's paid, live exam. I understand
> they have to reseed the testing pool, but isn't there a better way?
>
> I might be wrong on my critiques, maybe other companies have in-house
> alpha and beta exams in a small scale, privately, or in their
> corporate campus, but I've never heard of it, have any of you?
>
> Just recently, someone on a Novell educational forum on cnenet
> inquired on the results of a beta that was overdue, and the moderator
> got an answer for us from the testing people themselves. I posted a
> large thank you message for how serious they handle their education
> department, and someone from their testing group personally replied on
> the board and assured us the results would be posted soon. (The
> Netware 5.1 advanced admin exam revision had to go into beta twice
> because the first time one of the simulations crashed and prevented
> many of us from finishing the exam)
>
> I realized Cisco needed help in their training department when they
> changed their beta exam policy on the 5th week of waiting for the
> Foundations exam from 6-8 weeks to 8-12 weeks. It took them a little
> over 12 weeks to publish beta results for an exam that's supposed to
> be made up of questions from the live exams.
>
> For the CCNA 2.0 & CCNP 2.0 exams, the beta test takers had to wait at
> least 2 weeks from the time their respective exam went live. I've
> convinced myself that Cisco takes this time to validate the pass rate
> they've established. The test results couldn't have just been sitting
> on someone's hard drive waiting to be sent to Prometric for that time.
>
> At best, hopefully their training department will read our suggestions
> and critiques, or someone who has always wanted to know how the beta
> exam process works will come across this thread and learn something.
>
> F.G.J. Ruiz-Alaniz
> MCSE, CNEx3, CCNP
>
> And if I might add a reply to Priscilla's latter comment that we don't
> want them to give us a flawed test. You're absolutely right. With
> all the comments we gave them that the exam was not well-written (to
> put it mildly) they're kind of stuck since they can't just throw the
> test out, since they took our money and HAVE to give us something.
> Here's a new suggestion, which I don't know if they'll even read:
> They could do a beta retake with a refined, exam. It will never
> happen, I know
>
> Does anyone know the size of their test sample? I think Microsoft's
> is 500 and Novell's is 300.
>
> On 25 Mar 2001 15:47:27 -0500, in groupstudy.cisco [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> (Priscilla Oppenheimer) wrote:
>
> >Maybe they laid off the people working on it. Just kidding. Seriously,
the
> >Cisco training department has always worked at about 1/100,000,000 the
> >speed of Internet time.
> >
> >Analyzing the results of a beta test is time-consuming, though, and
> >sometimes there are arguments on the meaning of the results. The test
> >writers must go through and weed out questions that everyone got right,
> >even the obvious newbies. (Newbies and experts are defined by the test
> >results, so it's an iterative process.) They must eliminate questions
that
> >nobody got right. They must eliminate questions that the newbies got
right
> >but the experts got wrong. Then they have to rescore the beta results.
> >
> >If they eliminated too many questions, they have to add new ones. This
must
> >be done with care since the new questions won't go through the same beta
> >test. Then, they must make sure the course matches the test.
> >
> >Still, I agree that it's egregious that it has taken 14 weeks.
> >
> >Priscilla
> >
> >At 02:22 PM 3/25/01, F.G.J. Ruiz-Alaniz wrote:
> >>Anyone know who we can call at Cisco? Speaking to Prometric is a
> >>waste of time because they blame Cisco (this from past experience with
> >>them).
> >>
> >>Not to spread rumors, but I think this is related to them not having
> >>published the updated CID 4.0 class yet. I can't find any mention of
> >>it anywhere. Beta exams from other companies are not this bad, I've
> >>never even had one from Novell, Microsoft, or CompTIA take more than 8
> >>weeks for me to get my report in the mail.
> >>
> >>Well, I'll continue waiting...
> >>
> >>On 25 Mar 2001 09:56:29 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ("GNOME") wrote:
> >>
> >> >14 weeks and still waiting!!!!!!!!!!!!
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >"Tim Noonan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >> >[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> >> Hi. Has anyone got the results from the CID beta test yet?
> >> >> I have taken several beta test and this is the longest I have had to
wait
> >> >> for the results.
> >> >> Thanks,
> >> >> Tim
> >> >> Ps. Please cc me with any reply becuase I don't have access to the
mailing
> >> >> list right now.
> >> >> _________________________________________________________________
> >> >> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> >Priscilla Oppenheimer
> >http://www.priscilla.com
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