> I just took the LPIC-101 exam. For reasons unknown, the test is scored
> from 200 to 800. My score was a piffling 710.
>
> If my arithmetic is right, (710-200)/(800-200) = 510/600 = 85%.
>
> The test consists of 60 questions. 1/60 = 1.666% So that means that I
> must have got between 9 and 10 questions completely wrong. (?)

Were they all proper questions with only one correct answer, or did it 
include stupid wordy answers that you can only get all the marks if you 
write exactly all the keywords and phrases they have on the answer sheet 
(of course you get no marks for valid answers not on their sheet)?

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Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> But hey, that's Unix all over. Don't expect there to be any reason or
> rhyme to it, just memorise this crap.

No need to memorise such things. There is always the manual. There are 
more important things to learn about UNIX than that. And if an exam 
testing your UNIX knowledge in general _requires_ you to know -e without 
giving you access to the manpage of RPM, then this is a clear indication 
of the quality of the exam itself.

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Le 2013-03-12 15:23, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
>
> The LPI website seems to indicate that /subjects/ are weighted, with
> more important subjects getting more questions. This seems to imply that
> each individual question is worth the same amount.
>

Back in the days where I was Cisco certified, not only were the sections 
weighted, but the exam questions focused on the stuff you didn't know.

2-3 questions per main area... then delve into the ones you failed to 
see if you were just unlucky with the first questions, or if you really 
don't have a clue.

This is why you hear:
"it's all about subnetting"
"I had 20 questions on MPLS switching, you?"
"Me?  every second question was about IPv6"
etc...


-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On 13/03/2013 12:53 PM, Urs Holzer wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> But hey, that's Unix all over. Don't expect there to be any reason or
>> rhyme to it, just memorise this crap.
>
> No need to memorise such things. There is always the manual. There are
> more important things to learn about UNIX than that. And if an exam
> testing your UNIX knowledge in general _requires_ you to know -e without
> giving you access to the manpage of RPM, then this is a clear indication
> of the quality of the exam itself.

Well, that's the thing. In the Real World, it's trivial to look up what 
some specific obscure option does. It's arguably important to realise 
that a particular command offers a feature, but remembering the actual 
switch to turn it on is something you can easily look up if and when you 
ever actually need it.

On the other hand, what else can they put in the exam? They have to ask 
you questions about *something*...

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On 13/03/2013 10:37 AM, scott wrote:
> Were they all proper questions with only one correct answer, or did it
> include stupid wordy answers that you can only get all the marks if you
> write exactly all the keywords and phrases they have on the answer sheet
> (of course you get no marks for valid answers not on their sheet)?

The majority are multiple-choice, with 5 options. (And if one of the 
options is "none of the above", this is almost ALWAYS the wrong answer!)

There were about 6 questions which require you to type something - the 
name of a command or the absolute path to a file, or perhaps one command 
switch. Stuff which is extremely easy for a machine to verify.

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On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:28:07 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> Well, that's the thing. In the Real World, it's trivial to look up what
> some specific obscure option does.

Removing a package is, arguably, not an obscure option one would use 
occasionally.

I had a similar debate with a physics prof once in college - the course 
was for engineering students, but I was a CS student, so I'd have 
reference materials available to ensure that I was coding the forumulas 
properly in my simulation - and if I didn't remember the exact formula 
for calculating lift based on a particular airfoil shape, I wouldn't 
guess, I'd look it up.

"Not good enough".

And of course, I lost the debate, because it was the professor's class 
and he got to decide what was important and what wasn't.

Years later, it occurred to me that he did have a point (though I still 
maintain he was applying it incorrectly by assuming all students were 
engineering students and grading everyone as such, but that's a separate 
issue).  There are some things that, while you *can* look them up, if 
you're competent, you should never *need* to look up.

Remember that a certification exam is a measure of a minimally qualified 
candidate to do a particular job or task.  A minimally qualified 
candidate on Linux *should* be able to install/remove packages without 
having to look the command up every time they do it.

Jim

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On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:43:50 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:

> Back in the days where I was Cisco certified, not only were the sections
> weighted, but the exam questions focused on the stuff you didn't know.

Some companies still use such adaptive testing, but it requires a very 
comprehensive beta on the exam.

Jim

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>> Well, that's the thing. In the Real World, it's trivial to look up what
>> some specific obscure option does.
>
> Removing a package is, arguably, not an obscure option one would use
> occasionally.

Sure. But usually you wouldn't use rpm -e, you would use one of several 
far more user-friendly tools such as Yum or Zypper or whatever.

> There are some things that, while you *can* look them up, if
> you're competent, you should never *need* to look up.
>
> Remember that a certification exam is a measure of a minimally qualified
> candidate to do a particular job or task.  A minimally qualified
> candidate on Linux *should* be able to install/remove packages without
> having to look the command up every time they do it.

The problem being that the exam requires you to know how to use every 
possible package manager of every possible distro, not just the one you 
actually use every single day.

If you ask me how to use Zypper, I can answer that. I use it all the 
time. But if you ask me how to work, oh, ANY OTHER SYSTEM, I'm probably 
not going to know the answer. But if some day I need to use one, I can 
easily look this stuff up, and if I end up using it a lot I'll quickly 
stop needing to look this stuff up.

I understand that it's important to know how to use different package 
managers. I just disagree it's necessary to know every single one of 
them to the level of detail where you've memorised every single option 
and flag available. You're only going to do that for the one particular 
system you use regularly.

Then again, I guess I should just be thankful there weren't more 
questions about Vi. Do you know, the other day I had 3 LPIC-1 certified 
staff crowding around my monitor, and between the four of us we couldn't 
work out how to copy and paste a chunk of text using Vi...

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On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 22:19:25 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Well, that's the thing. In the Real World, it's trivial to look up
>>> what some specific obscure option does.
>>
>> Removing a package is, arguably, not an obscure option one would use
>> occasionally.
> 
> Sure. But usually you wouldn't use rpm -e, you would use one of several
> far more user-friendly tools such as Yum or Zypper or whatever.

Except those tools aren't common across multiple distributions.  'rpm' is.

And if you're trying to manage it in a distro-agnostic way, then you'd 
use the more common tool.

>> Remember that a certification exam is a measure of a minimally
>> qualified candidate to do a particular job or task.  A minimally
>> qualified candidate on Linux *should* be able to install/remove
>> packages without having to look the command up every time they do it.
> 
> The problem being that the exam requires you to know how to use every
> possible package manager of every possible distro, not just the one you
> actually use every single day.

It's a generic Linux exam - so yes, it's going to ask about things 
relating to different distros.

If you want a certification that's for a specific distro, you get that 
from the maker of the distro (a CLP from SUSE, a RHCE from RedHat, etc.)

> If you ask me how to use Zypper, I can answer that. I use it all the
> time. But if you ask me how to work, oh, ANY OTHER SYSTEM, I'm probably
> not going to know the answer. But if some day I need to use one, I can
> easily look this stuff up, and if I end up using it a lot I'll quickly
> stop needing to look this stuff up.

The point of the exam is to measure a minimum set of necessary skills, 
though, and for LPI, that's a cross-distro certification, so it's - by 
its very nature - going to look for things that are broader than "on 
openSUSE, what command would you use to remove a package".  That kind of 
question doesn't meet the goal of being about general Linux knowledge.

"What general command do you use to remove an RPM?" does meet that 
objective.

It's important to learn according to the learning objectives for an exam 
when preparing to take the exam.  There is, in fact, an entire ISO 
standard devoted to creating learning objectives so an exam can be 
created independently from the content - both derive from the same 
learning objectives.  (ISO/IEC 17024 in case anyone's interested.)

> I understand that it's important to know how to use different package
> managers. I just disagree it's necessary to know every single one of
> them to the level of detail where you've memorised every single option
> and flag available. You're only going to do that for the one particular
> system you use regularly.

It's not "every single option", though, it's one of the more common 
options one would use.

> Then again, I guess I should just be thankful there weren't more
> questions about Vi. Do you know, the other day I had 3 LPIC-1 certified
> staff crowding around my monitor, and between the four of us we couldn't
> work out how to copy and paste a chunk of text using Vi...

Or indeed on how to exit it when you've finished. <scnr> ;)

BTW, well done on the exam score. :)

Jim

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On 13/03/2013 10:19 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Then again, I guess I should just be thankful there weren't more
> questions about Vi. Do you know, the other day I had 3 LPIC-1 certified
> staff crowding around my monitor, and between the four of us we couldn't
> work out how to copy and paste a chunk of text using Vi...


It sounds like you are enjoying your job.

And doesn't everyone outside of academia know that the exam system 
sucks? Now, the education system "teaches" to pass exams not to educate. 
A vicious circle that dilutes any benefit that being able to read 
without moving your lips, gives.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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