another DCA exam critique

[rbihlmeyer]

I really liked this exam. No silly multiple-choice questions. Ability to search the documentation, if you forgot the spelling of one advanced setting. Oh, and
I also learned one or two things during the exam, which is a first.

There are a few low points, however.

• No feedback/comment ability. I'd really like to qualify my actions in some labs, where I couldn't reach the stated goal. In some of these, I really thought the problem was the environment, not my ability.
• My task screen (a web page, it seems) was broken for a few minutes. Thank providence, it healed itself after clicking the reload link a couple of times.
• Some files that I had to generate were already present. Were the machines not properly purged, or is it some artefact of how testing is done? Would I've been able to just skip the relevant tasks ... :smileymischief: ?
• The locked down windows desktop. You have no taskbar (why?) and alt-tab does not work (why oh why?).
• Too little screen estate. Precious space is wasted by a banner (yes, I know my name, and that of the exam, no need to show it to me all the time), a thick white border, and the "switch" bar spanning the whole screen (a big button would have been enough). That leaves not much pixels for the rdp session -- it is of small resolution, and the extreme edges of it are not even shown.

The last two bullets made navigating the environment more of a chore than it needs to be. Rather than switching windows I had to minimize/restore them all the time, which is not very performant over rdp.

That said, my overall experience was positive.

[aldikan]

"No feedback/comment ability. I'd really like to qualify my actions in  some labs, where I couldn't reach the stated goal. In some of these, I  really thought the problem was the environment, not my ability."

+1 for the above.

Please e-mail certification team. I have,

In my exam, my vMA was not ready excecute any commands, prompting for running vMa clean, rebooting, therefore loosing some precious time.

I also had a few glitches within the cluster that most likely was not part of the test.

Ability to leave feedback/comment would be great and beneficial for both VMware and participant,

"Some files that I had to generate were already present. Were the  machines not properly purged, or is it some artefact of how testing is  done?",

Seen this as well, not sure what was that about.

Glad you enjoyed the exam, I did too, great work was done by VMware, just need to improve a few areas and feedback is a must!

Alex

[AndreTheGiant]

I've got a big issue during my exam... the "browser" part with the instruction was broken after half of the exam.

No way to solve it...

If you have a blocking problem, the only way is explan the problem at your testing center and they will open for you an "incident" to VUE.

In my case, after a week I was contacted by a VUE representative and they give me the option of reschedule the exam or get a refound.

Andre

[edgrigson]

Snap. I had issues with a couple of questions simply because I couldn't get the the button at the bottom of the dialog to click 'Apply', and I wasn't sure if hitting Enter on the keyboard was going to do the same thing. I also had issues with putty sessions refusing to open - no window,  login prompt etc so I had to go via VM consoles which meant tiny  windows, scrolls bars and lots of wasted time (and pain).

Nice to not have multiple choice, but a few new frustrations instead! Ah, the grass is always greener eh? :smileycry::smileysilly:

Regards,

Ed.

ps. I'm going to email certification@vmware.com, seems only fair to provide feedback.