The World According to Mitch

Every class I teach I get questions about certification exams. I do not mean about the value of certifications, although there is that too… and I will revisit that topic in a later article. I mean about the exam experience.

When I took my first exams, I had the choice of taking it at a Pearson Vue testing centre or a Prometric testing centre. Microsoft would occasionally select one of the two vendors… and then would change between the two a few times over the years. At present the three companies that I hold current certifications for – CompTIA, ISC2, and Microsoft – all test with Pearson Vue. With that said, it doesn’t really matter for most of my exams. You see, since 2020 I have sat seventeen exams… and fifteen of them have been from home.

I am not sure when the option to take exams from home was introduced, but I know that as late as November of 2019 I was taking the exams at testing centres. I knew the proctored remote exams was an option, but with two exceptions (when I was put in charge of getting my entire team in Ottawa certified, so I set up a clean exam room for us to use) for 91 of my first 93 certification exams I drove or walked or took the train to a testing centre. It was only when Covid had us locked down that I relented and began taking exams from home.

I learned a lot from the experience of my first home exams in the summer of 2020. It is a coincidence that my first home exam was five years ago next week. I remember being told that not only did my desk have to be clean, but I could not have any peripherals connected – other than an external keyboard, mouse, and camera if I needed it. I was only allowed to have a single monitor – either my laptop screen, or if I was willing to close the laptop screen then I could have a larger monitor connected. All of this made it impossible – or at the very least extremely impractical – to sit the exam at my desk. I ended up setting my laptop up on an end table in the corner of my office.

Over the past five years I have taught scores of classes and discussed the pros and cons of taking exams from home dozens of times. I know for me I would rather take the exam from home… but for others it is not an option. I have listened to many students tell me of the obstacles they had to overcome to take their exams… and occasionally laughed at the means by which they did. One student told me that to avoid interruptions by family and pets they locked themselves into the washroom and sat on the porcelain throne to sit their exam… and the proctor made them move the shampoo bottles out of reach.

Taking exams from home must be easier for one who lives alone. I do not have to coordinate my schedule with anyone else to make sure I am left undisturbed. I simply have to either walk my dog before the exam and then close her into my bedroom, or else ask a neighbour to watch over her for a couple of hours (as I usually do). I do not have to worry about children or parents or spouses who would have to be informed that any interruption would be grounds for an automatic FAIL. This would include talking, or walking through the room, or anything else that an exam proctor might perceive to be an attempt to influence the exam results. Sometimes it is probably just easier to go into the testing centre!

I have taken eleven certification exams since moving into my current apartment, and not one of them was taken from behind my desk. I am including a photo of my desk from yesterday afternoon as I prepared for my latest exam for reference.

In a word… NO.

For most of the exams I have taken from home I followed the same steps that I followed for that first exam in June of 2020… I set up an end table in a corner and put my laptop on that. Recently though I have been clearing off the kitchen table and setting up on that. Not only do I not have to move furniture around, but it also has the added bonus of forcing me to clean off the table (which usually has all manner of bits and bobs on it). The result? See for yourself.

When in the logon procedure I am asked to take the four pictures of all sides of my exam area, it is easy to do so. Yes, I have my entire kitchen behind me… but nothing is within reach.

When taking my exams from home, I avoid traffic, I never have to look (or pay) for parking, and I do not have to time my departure differently based on different weather events (or road construction, or unpredictable stoppages caused by accidents or anything else). I do have to prepare my exam room, and as I mentioned, if I did not live alone then I would have to coordinate with the people I lived with… but that is why we are able to choose what is best for us.

One more great advantage to remote testing is scheduling. Testing centres have set business hours, and for those business hours they have a limited number of testing stations. In the past I have had to book exams weeks out because that was when the next open appointment was. Of my last five remote exams, three of them were taken on the weekend, and one of them was taken at 9:30pm. Try finding a testing centre that is open those hours! One student told me last month that he was taking their exams on Monday… and then right before the weekend he received an email that the exam centre would not be open Monday because of a holiday, so he rescheduled for Wednesday… and that appointment was cancelled as well because of other reasons… it could have been as simple as the exam proctor at the site had jury duty or decided to take the day off. He had to wait three more weeks before his schedule allowed him to take the exams. These issues would never happen with remote exams.

Another issue that comes up a lot with my students is location. If I wanted to take an exam at a testing centre, the nearest one is just under 10 miles (15.2km) from my apartment. I drive, and for me that is a very reasonable drive. According to Google Maps, it would take me fifteen minutes to drive there. For people who do not drive, it would take between 47 minutes to an hour to get there by bus… 1h05m by bicycle, or 4h22m walking. Remember, that is each way. I have heard from students that the nearest testing centre for them was over 200km away. For them there is no real choice, and remote exams are the only practical option. This made certification exams much more accessible to many candidates who do not live in urban centres who might have had to take a trip to another province or state to take exams.

I should mention that while both Microsoft and CompTIA allow for remote proctored exams, other vendors may not. When I take my ISC2 exams I have to drive to a testing centre in Hamilton to sit the exams in person. I do not know what other vendors may allow or not allow remote testing.

When you register for your exam you are given the option of taking it in-person or on-line; for each you are given the prerequisites, and you can run a test to ensure that your computer and network are sufficient for the remote exam. As long as you go through those test you should not have any problems… or at least if you do have problems, then they can be detected during this pre-test.

CONCLUSION

If you think that taking your exam from home will be easier, or it might give you an opportunity to cheat, then let me disabuse you of that notion. The exam is exactly as difficult (or easy if you are prepared) as it would be at the training centre. You will be on camera (and you are being watched!) for the duration of the exam, and while I have never really wanted to cheat on an exam, I am a security guy and I do go into most situations with a mind of how I might compromise systems if I were of a mind to. While I have figured out a few possibilities, none of them are practical… and no, I will not share them with you.

Online exams are a great option for some candidates. The only difference to taking the exam in person – once you sit down to start the exam – is that you do not have the option of a dry erase whiteboard to take notes on. Other than that, the actual exam experience is the same. If anything, I suspect the remote proctors might be stricter than the in-person ones because I have been told to take off my watch during exams, uncover my face, and more. In-person you might be allowed to bring a drink into the exam room – that is not an option for online exams.

Avoiding the commute, the weather, the parking, and more are great reasons to try them… as long as you have a space that you can prepare to meet the requirements. If not? With the exception of one testing centre I once visited for a couple of exams, every one of them (and there have been dozens along the way) has prepared the space perfectly.

Whichever way you prefer… you have the choice!