December 6, 2009 at 8:33 am
Indeed, my not knowing the details of your other test experiences being PreVisor and also finding their other tests unrealistic certainly made it harder to see that your rancor had more basis than one test. While my exposure to PreVisor was only one test, it was not what I would call an ideal one, nor was it a disaster. It was mostly a pleasant surprise, in that I could reference a tool I would normally use on the job to answer details that one may be unlikely to have at hand. Had that not been available, I would quite likely have had similar rancor were the results significantly less positive.
I think where the difficulty is for testing many topics is determining exactly what qualifies as skill when it comes to topics like OO Fundamentals. If all you need do is understand a diagram to answer a question correctly, then the test question is bogus because it doesn't test knowledge, it tests the ability of the subject to understand the person who created the diagram - hardly an objective test of skill in anything else. I'm quite sure we agree on that.
Most of my response was based on the emotion you poured into your posts. Of course, we only have the written word here to communicate with, and that has it's limitations as well. There are no doubt many topics where testing one's skill would be very difficult to achieve. Psychology is certainly one of those, and for a very good reason. People are a difficult class of objects, as they do not all have the exact same set of properties or methods. And thank goodness, or we'd all be drones. However, that doesn't invalidate the use of psychology to help improve testing, because whether you choose to believe it or not, human beings attempt to game every test we take when the results are important enough. Find someone who hasn't ever done it, nor could ever do so, and it's unlikely you're dealing with a flesh and blood human being. That is simply human nature. Sometimes psychology methods will work for some people, and that's why it persists. It actually CAN help - but just like politicians, it can only do so for "all of the people some of the time, or some of the people, all the time, but never all of the people, all of the time".
Steve
(aka sgmunson)
:-):-):-)
mdurthaler (12/6/2009)
Ah ... There is missing information Steve. Having taken several of their tests, none in SQL and really feeling like I'd been through the wringer, I questioned my recruiters as to the wisdom and design of their tests. Nearly every recruiter I've spoken with knows the tests are, in their own words, imperfect.Also, 1 for 1, every recruiter and Account Manager I've spoken with has told me I'm in the majority as far as complaints as to the "real-worldness" of thier questions and the lack of testing for best practices. I have it there's quite a majority of developers fed up with Pre Visor tests.
I got to doing home work by googling Pre Visor and ended up here at this forum where I'm already a member. It would be strange indeed if the only thing Pre Visor gets right is tests for SQL, perhaps this is the case.
I took their OO Fundamentals test and ran into nothing whatsoever that covered OO Fundamentals as I learned them on the MCSD 70-305 Exam course. I never have taken their SQL exam. Perhaps I should.
I see your point on Psych and have to agree with you. I just don't agree that Psychology is a science. Engineering disciplines, Chemistry, Medical sciences such as Dentistry, Cardiology, produce predictable results every time. A person who would have had to have heart surgery even 20 years ago, could more recently get an Angioplasty and it's an outpatient operation. I'm sorry but Psychs plainly have no such results. That's my point.
So as soon as I saw that their tests were based on the best standards of Industrial Psych, I said to myself "this all adds up."
For whatever reason and I don't know how, I've placed well on their C#.net and VB.Net tests. The point is their questions make no sense, are not real world and are not based on Microsoft Best Practices. Again, as I have it from recruiters, I'm in the majority with such sentitments.
I appreciate someone being honest with me. I was, in truth, being a bit rancorous -- excellent choice of evaluative terms on your part.
I like a test that challenges my skills and isn't designed out of fear that someone might "game" it. A person who "games it" is going to get caught anyhow. I see no point in creating a test that tries to take the place of active, 1:1 human interaction. I have to say that if a person doing an interview really does probe the prospect, he has to know what he's doing in order to accurately assess the prospects skills. That's just my opinion.
Well, if you can pass an SQL test on Pre Visor and score well on it, I will admit that you've certainly got a knack for abstracting your knowledge out. By that I mean with Pre Visor's (I'm sorry) use of their own non-standard diagrams in questions deliberately crafted to confuse people, if you can answer those and score well, my hat's off to you. I could not make enough sense out of their diagrams and given keys with OO Fundamentals to make any sense of it. And I know OO Fundamentals all the way down to CIL -- at least with respect to the work that I do.
But thanks for getting back with me and challenging me. I like that and look forward to your reply.
Best,
Mike
Steve (aka sgmunson) 🙂 🙂 🙂
Rent Servers for Income (picks and shovels strategy)
December 6, 2009 at 8:46 am
Agreed.
I think my protective instincts turned on a bit here. I wanted anyone doing Pre Visor to be aware of the full gamut of experience that is possible. Mine have been far from positive.
For instance, with one firm, based on what they need I could walk in the door and do the work today. However, they want a current Pre Visor done. I have current and very acceptable Kenexa Prove It! tests. Nope ... they want Pre Visor.
Well, I'm a bit put off by that. So yep, there's some emotion there.
Anyhow, this forum isn't the place for such and I appreciate your responses. It gave me someone to talk to and perhaps this is what was required.
I'm actually quite happy that someone had a warm and fuzzy with Pre Visor (at least to a degree, if I interpret your communication correctly)
Well Steve ... Thank God it's Sunday!! To further help vent frustrations, in a few hours, I can sit in front of the tube and watch full grown men 1.5 times my size go at it full contact with each other.
Have a good weekend.
December 10, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Yikes, Will agree with everything from newbie's post above. I took this test less than a week ago, and I was astonished with the crazy diagrams I saw.., something I have never encountered before! The Math section was a breeze! However, I did not come with a good outcome either on overall assessment. I am well educated and have had a pretty stable job for a while.., from a very reputable company, making important decisions in weekly bases! all well..
December 11, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Just a personal opinion here... I don't believe in such canned tests because they're not testing for what I want to see in a Developer or DBA.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
December 11, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Just an FYI, my test took place over a year and a half ago now, as did the original post on this topic, and while I was certainly pleased with the result, I have to agree that such test DO have severe limits on what they can test. Being able to know how to get to a good solution is usually more important than merely being able to find ANY solution, and the testing one's thought processes just isn't realistic. As that's not going to happen any time soon, and this topic is this old... there really isn't a whole lot more to say on it...
Just my two cents...
Steve
(aka sgmunson)
:-):-):-)
Steve (aka sgmunson) 🙂 🙂 🙂
Rent Servers for Income (picks and shovels strategy)
April 28, 2011 at 11:04 pm
I just did one this evening, on development and SQL Server 2008 R2. A lot of 2005+ level questions, not surprisingly, using things like XML and the CTE form. One, involving a many-to-many schema that seemed not to have a right answer (not that I know everything!).
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