They say you can't teach an 'old dog' new tricks... and when you get to be as old as me (OK, "I am", for your English majors), that is probably very true especially when it comes to exam taking. I realized this again during the recent QuickBooks Recertification deadline.
No matter what it never fails to amaze me that the test questions on Intuit exams always have some 'tricky wording' just to see if you are paying attention, or if you know the differences between 'the study materials' and 'real life' (in terms of the current product). I guess that's one reason why Intuit publishes that little disclosure in the study materials at the end of the start of each new section telling you that the 'actual product' is always undergoing revisions and may actually reflect differences from the information taught in the training content and/or examination(s).
Case in point, without actually disclosing exam questions in the recertification examination(s). There are always one or two questions where you are asked to select a 'menu flow'... you know a sequence of steps to perform a specific function. Begin with this step, and end with the specific function in the question... always using the little arrows > to indicate from one step to the next (supposedly). But don't you just hate it when the exam question either skips a 'menu' item between steps, or it uses a different term. Oh so sorry, the software has changed and the exam reflects what is in the software not the study material that was used, or just the opposite, the exam reflects the study material and not the current product... just one problem folks... both options appear on the exam.
Then there are other questions that relate to product changes vs study materials, where 'nomenclature' has changed. Maybe the problem is that the 'nomenclature' simply changes far too often, if they didn't change the nomenclature so much then they wouldn't have to worry about the exam matching the product, matching the study materials, because it would 'all match'. Do we really need to change nomenclature of half the menu items simply because an engineering team, or a development team, had so much turn-over within their ranks (or so it seems)? Get real, we don't need to change the terminology of 'an accounting software' ever time the wind blows...
Then there is 'a lack of questions'. What I mean here is that things that were pounded into our heads in the study materials, and for which there were so many 'study questions' in the preparatory self-paced tests, don't even appear on the actual recertification examinations at all, or if they do they are asked in such a way you hardly recognize them as the topic of emphasis called out in the learning materials & objectives. These 'red herrings' must be put in the study content simply to throw us off and to make us think that we are really learning something of importance that is of no importance whatsoever. I just love learning absolutely everything about nothing, don't you?
But the biggest single issue I have is asking questions about topics where the question details are not to be found 'at all' in the study materials (at least not the 'self-study' materials. Perhaps they might be presented in live sessions, sometimes that content and even the PDFs made available during those sessions available are different than the self-study content, but when you have to actually have to go searching in the product(s) and/or searching the internet to find any reference to a question being asked, there needs to be enhanced study content made available.
And maybe that's my number one take away... you use to be able to download a PDF of all the courses regardless of how you chose o prepare, but no longer can you do so. Perhaps Intuit uses the PDF availability as an incentive to attract attendees to 'live webinars' of the training but I think they should make the same materials available to all their ProAdvisors for pre-examination preparation, and that's what I learned during Recertification.
Really, I guess I shouldn't be complaining... I'm not really... this is what experts call 'constructive criticism'... because I passed, certificate in hand. I guess you really can 'teach a 'very very old dog' some new tricks.'
Yes, I updated this article with a few 'punch lines' after I had time to work out the timing... see you on the stand-up floor in Vegas.