I had to take a test today for a certification that I need for work. Normally, this is a good thing, but the reality of this particular certification exam is that it's 'graded' by the computer and it's not using a very good algorithm for determining if the answer you provided correctly matched the expected answer. For example, do you care about the case of the answer? Do you care about whitespace? In both cases, this vendor's on-line test cared about each of these.
It tells you up-front, and when the question is very specific, that's OK. For example, if the question were about Java, then you could easily say:
Fill in the blank: To make an upper-case copy of a string you would use:
String c = aString.________;
This is easy as there's only one answer that will fit in the blank that will compile and work with regular Java. These are fair questions. But what if the user said toUpperCase and not toUpperCase() - do they get it wrong? Technically, they would because without the () it's not going to work. However, is that really necessary for the developer to get right in order to be certified on a platform? Maybe... maybe not.
But the real problems come into play when they have questions like this:
What does this describe: The native Java interprocess communication system
OK... so is it 'RMI', or is it the java.rmi package, or is it 'Remote Method Invocation'? If the computer is grading this, it needs to be pretty darn smart about it because all are valid answers to the vague question. But in fact, this vendor's online test was just this vague in parts and some answers were just this difficult to answer.
Again, the problem is you get one chance at this, and you don't know how you're doing until it's all over and you get your "grade". Thankfully, I passed just fine, but it was with the knowledge of the way they were grading this exam.
I come from a long line of teachers, and this is a horrible testing process. They need to have the test email an individual and have them look at it with a pair of eyes. That way it's not as important how you say it, as what you say. Then again... this is a crummy vendor, and not the first time I've had exceptions with online certification exams. Probably won't be the last, either.