Qt Certification Exam simulation - would it be 1. legal? 2. useful?

infoctopus

Would it be legal to release a software that simulates Qt Certification Exam:

app developed from scratch, nothing similar to PearsonVUE app
questions created from scratch, but the topics are from Qt Essentials Curriculum Block

Will it be useful to anyone?
Anyone interested in such app for mobile platforms? (learn/test on the go)

DenisKormalev

I think it will be legal (simply don't see any legal problems here if all is made from scratch).
And it will be useful. I remember some people asked about exam simulation.

blex

It will be a very useful for me and for my team members.

Maybe, I can take some part in development/testing.

Good Luck for your project :)

DenisKormalev

Also about legal thing. I think you can pass set of your questions to Vladimir or someone who can say that this set will be ok.

infoctopus

I hope some of trolls will observe this topic and maybe even will be able to give official answers :)

giesbert

I think, if you create the questions from scratch, it should be ok. And I would also be interested in :-) als perhaps in developement.

DenisKormalev

Gerolf, not sure about questions. There is some chance that some of this questions will be similar to questions from official set of essentials exam. In this case I think they should be removed/changed.

milot.shala

In my opinion main purpose of the certification exam is to make sure that exam takers know the material in order to pass the exam; putting an exam simulator with exam questions/answers out there I think people will try to memorize the questions and pass the exam without having the exam-passing skills, the exam would become meaningless. If we already have the exam answers and pass the exam without knowing the material that good, why bother getting certified

DenisKormalev

Milot, you are right, that's why I'm talking about full difference between official set of questions and questions in simulation.

milot.shala

And why create a simulator then? I think it might be the case where people just want to see how the exam would look like... I really don't get why having simulator would be good for exam takers, if you can enlighten me on this?

DenisKormalev

Milot, I can't understand also. As for me curriculum is enough for passing the exam. But some people want simulation. It will be like some training (questions are from topics of curriculum as official set of questions). Not sure it is useful, but it is something that is requested by people.

milot.shala

I see... I think it would be better if everyone look at the curriculum block and read material that they already have on Qt Assistant, I haven't seen any other programming framework that has documentation as Qt have, whatever information you need on Qt it's already there, one just have to look for it :)

goetz

There is an example question on "Qt website":http://qt.nokia.com/developer/learning/certification/exam/format-flow.

I passed the basic certification and I did the C++ advanced test. I can clearly state, that there is no need to simulate the exam. The questions and their format are easy to understand. The answers are multiple choice.

If you fail to understand the exam format I really doubt that you are a programmer skilled enough to deserve the certification. Sorry if that sounds a bit rude, but the certification should not be downgraded too much. We all remember the times when it was almost enough to know where the start button in windows is to become some kind of MCxy-something...

Regarding the legal side:
Once you take the exam(s) you sign a non disclosure agreement. If you make a training app that at least some minimal sense to its users, I suspect you will break that agreement, because you make public the format of the exam. If you did not take the exam, how will that training give the users any benefit?

milot.shala

@Volker,

I totally agree with you on this!

DenisKormalev

Volker, format of the exam is not under NDA, you can read about format at qt.nokia.com. Questions are under NDA.

And I'm agreed with you about "the certification should not be downgraded too much". I simply don't think that simulation with completely different set of questions will lead to it.

goetz

I can't imagine how the questions would not be influenced by the questions of the real exams.

But all that is speculation, let's wait for the Trolls to comment on that topic. I'm sure they will do, but let them have their well deserved weekend :-)

For the advanced C++ exam: Read (and understand!) the C++ FAQs on parashift.com and I bet you will pass the test!

DenisKormalev

Volker, I think that classic Stroustrup book will be enough for C++ test :)

goetz

That's too much pages and way too boring to read. The C++ FAQs is really fun to read (this is often underestimated!)

xsacha

Write the simulation test in QtQuick with fancy animations for extra brownie points. Then we can test our knowledge while we're on the train. Continually update the database with random exam questions.

blex

Probably, simulator itself is not very interesting, but the questions database is good. Even if questions are not closely related to exam questions.

Reading information and answering the questions are diferent task, and you need to practice in both :)