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> The typical approach, apparently, is to acquire a "dump," which is the bank of actual questions, and then repeatedly take "practice exams" so that they've alr

> The typical approach, apparently, is to acquire a "dump," which is the bank of actual questions, and then repeatedly take "practice exams" so that they've already seen (and memorized) all of the questions that they might encounter during the actual exam. So, blatant cheating. Interestingly, when I decided to get a ham license, the method you describe as cheating is precisely how every single person and resource recommended preparing for the exam. I find it fascinating that certs are seen as so important in the military. I work for a Fortune 500 company and we care nothing for certifications. We don’t even really care about education (unless you are applying for an internship or first job out of college). Real life work experience is all that matters. When I look at a resume and see a bunch of certificates listed, it makes me suspicious that they are trying to disguise lack of ability with multiple choice tests. But, that mostly comes back to not having any faith in certificates.

grendelt 5y ago
Yeah, but the difference I believe is the FCC publishes the entire question pools to prevent third parties from selling a "dump". Ideally the pools are far larger than the questions you'd receive on the actual exam so trying to memorize the right answers is actually harder than engaging with the material. These test providers could do the same thing. They should expand their test pools to be extremely large by tweaking the values in each question so that one Q becomes 10. Prior to the federal government publishing question pools (I believe FAA does too), testing groups would send in folks to sit for the exam, memorize the questions then run outside and record what they saw. Do that enough times and the question pools emerged in their records and then they grew a big business selling that "dump". I can't imagine managing large question pools manually, but with digital tools it's become trivial in edtech circles. Why these test providers don't end it is beyond me. (Probably because the federal "cert" game status quo is plenty lucrative.)
vsareto 5y ago
You could have legit indicators of ability on your resume and you'll get a technical interview anyway. People are being just as suspicious of certs as they are prior experience. No one really trusts resumes at all, so it makes cert trustworthiness kind of moot.

grendelt 5y ago

Yeah, but the difference I believe is the FCC publishes the entire question pools to prevent third parties from selling a "dump". Ideally the pools are far larger than the questions you'd receive on the actual exam so trying to memorize the right answers is actually harder than engaging with the material. These test providers could do the same thing. They should expand their test pools to be extremely large by tweaking the values in each question so that one Q becomes 10. Prior to the federal government publishing question pools (I believe FAA does too), testing groups would send in folks to sit for the exam, memorize the questions then run outside and record what they saw. Do that enough times and the question pools emerged in their records and then they grew a big business selling that "dump". I can't imagine managing large question pools manually, but with digital tools it's become trivial in edtech circles. Why these test providers don't end it is beyond me. (Probably because the federal "cert" game status quo is plenty lucrative.)

vsareto 5y ago

You could have legit indicators of ability on your resume and you'll get a technical interview anyway. People are being just as suspicious of certs as they are prior experience. No one really trusts resumes at all, so it makes cert trustworthiness kind of moot.