I Passed!!!

I passed the test with a score of 749. I needed at least 675, so I guess there was a small cushion there.

I'm very relieved to be done with that. Now to finish writing about the whole process and look further forward.

A Real Simulation

This practice test environment has a 'certification mode' in which the actual test conditions are simulated.  There's not a lot of difference between this and the other ways I've taken the test, but I figured I'd give it a try.

It took me 23 minutes, according to the after test report, and I scored 94%.  Yay.

I acheived:

95% in operational procedures

94% in laptops

91% in networking

91% in PC hardware

90% in printers

A couple observations from this simulation:

I'm a little surprised that I missed at least one question in each section of the test.

I'm not surprised I did miss some questions.  There are some things, like class A, B, C or D IP addresses which I have missed previously, reviewed many times, and still don't have memorized.  I hope there are none, or very few of these questions on the test.

That question about the order in which I'd clean a laser printer continues to haunt me.  I think, if I ever need to clean a laser printer, I'll just toss it and buy a new one.

Time to take the real test.  I have it scheduled for this Friday, May 30.  Check back soon after that if you want to see how it goes.

76%

In my last three attempts, I missed 21 questions.  Going through those 21 questions, I scored 76%, not quite passing.

In detail, I scored:
100% in printers
100% in operational procedures
73% in PC hardware
71% in networking

Networking and PC hardware have  been among the lowest scoring areas on every version of the test I've taken.  I know that much of it has to do with just not memorizing things like which port a particular protocol uses.  Or how many pins a particular type of interface has.  These are things I don't think I necessarily need to know.  I long ago stopped depending on memorization because I don't have a very  good memory for it and because in previous work, depending on memory was only good for ensuring mistakes would be made.  Even when I knew what oil filter fit a Ford V-8, I always double checked, both for the customer's and for my piece of mind.  (It was a Fram PH8A, by the way.)  Eventually Ford engineered things differently and there was another part number.  It was good that I kept looking up the proper part number or customers would have started getting the wrong part from me.

For the purposes of this test, I'll work on memorizing what I need to, then I'll forget it again and look it up when I need to.  I'm off to try to memorize some things.  We'll see how it goes after that.

Yet Another Round

For this attempt, after a few days of not studying, or taking test, or really doing anything related, I took the 45 questions I have not seen in my two previous attempts at the test.  So, over the last three attempts, I've again seen all 245 questions available in this test bank.

This time I scored 87% overall, including:
80% in networking
90% in PC hardware

I think this is, overall, a good thing.  Having essentially not reinforced anything to do with this test for the past several days, I received a passing score.  This was a limited cross-section of questions, but I'll see the bright side instead of the negative.

Next will be another review of the questions I've missed lately.

Another Round

This time, I scored 91%.

I got:

100 % in printers

100% in operational procedures

90% in PC hardware

88% in networking

I set the test up to see only questions I had not seen on the previous test, but I don't think that happened.  Or maybe I've just seen all the test questions too many times.  I'll keep taking the test and reviewing, but I think I might have learned as much as I can learn from this process.  I guess that leaves only taking the test for real.  Tentatively, I'll plan to do that this coming weekend.  Meanwhile, I'll continue to post any updates I have here.

A Passing Score

This time, I took the test using a mix of 100 questions and scored 94%.  I think that is good, but since I've seen all the questions at least once and reviewed everything I missed the first time I saw them and subsequently answered all except one of those correctly, I don't think it's spectacular.

The details:

100% in laptops

100% in networking (had been a weakness the first couple rounds)

95% in operational procedures

90% in printers

88% in PC hardware

I imagine I'll score similarly when I take another 100 questions in my next attempt.  Of course, I'll post the details here.

The Final 19

I've now discovered that the test practice test environment will not allow me to take all the questions I've missed through all my iterations of the test.  By choosing missed questions it only allows me to retake the 19 I still have not answered successfully to this point.  I did exactly that and missed one question.

The only one I have not answered correctly to this point involves a nine step process for cleaning a thermal printer.  I haven't put them in the correct order, based on my own common sense interpretation of how I'd do it.  I also have not properly memorized their version of how it is supposed to be done.  I think the steps that are confusing me involve accessing the print head after releasing the print head.  If this ends up being the only one on the real test that I miss, I'll be more than happy with that.

I do wonder how many of these actual questions might be on the real test.  If it is none, I might be in trouble, since this practice testing is teaching me to answer its own questions correctly, but not necessarily anything else that might be asked.  Another thing to discover at a later time.

Next, I think I'll take a test involving a random sample of 100 questions, closely simulating the real thing, except that I've now seen every question in advance, and I've answered almost every one of them correctly at least once.  I hope the real world treats me as well.

All the Missed Questions

Sixty seven questions.  Nineteen missed.  That was a slight improvement over my last attempt and I've definitely learned from my previous mistakes.

Overall, I've answered 226 of the 245 questions correctly, or 92 percent.  If I'd done that all at once, the first time, I would have been quite happy to move onto the real test immediately I believe.  As it is, I will probably take another test including missed questions.  As I reviewed the 19 I missed this last time, I saw a few areas where I just don't know the answers and must guess, even after reviewing my previous mistakes.  There are others, such as the components on a motherboard, that I missed one item multiple times.  I believe I now know all the components well, so I'll be able to answer all the diagram questions correctly going forward.  We shall soon see if my confidence is well-founded.

Third Try

I probably should have waited until I was less distracted and feeling better, but I didn't.  I took the remaining 45 questions and took about 20 minutes to do so.

I scored a 58% overall including:

53% on PC hardware

and

62% on networking

I'm encouraged by the PC hardware score, oddly enough, because there were four or five questions which showed me an image of a motherboard and had me label many of the parts.  I got the wrong one or two components incorrect on all of them.  Now I know, for sure, which bits are which.  What I will worry about on the test is the quality of the images.  On a couple of them, I just couldn't see enough detail of the items highlighted to know what they were.

On the networking side, I missed several questions about port numbers.  That is one thing I knew very little about going in, so I know I need to study those.

I've now completed 245 questions and missed 67.  Not great, but I now know more than I did a couple days ago.  Stay tuned.  Next, I'll take another 100 question test and include everything  I missed so far.  It should be challenging and show me what I've been able to retain from my reviews of missed questions.

Second Test Attempt

I thought I might do better this second time around.  I was disappointed, but not by much.

I scored 75% overall, down two points.

As for my individual scores:
50% in printers
75% in operational procedures
75% in networking
76% in PC hardware

This was relatively consistent, but not good enough.

Again, reading the test questions correctly is vital.  There were two questions that specified how many answers to choose and I didn't choose the correct number of answers, guaranteeing a wrong answer.  There were a couple questions that, even upon review, didn't quite make sense to me.  There were also a couple that only became clear once the desired answer was explained.  I think becoming more familiar with the way the questions are presented will be very valuable for me when I take the real test.

A good thing about taking this practice test within the system it is presented in is the ability to configure the test differently.  For this round, I opted to see only questions I had not seen previously.  As a result, anything I learned from my review of the first test did not come into play.  According to the site, there are still 54 (if I'm remembering correctly?) questions I have not seen.

For my next try, I'll answer the remaining questions I have not seen.  After reviewing these, I'll be ready to retake the test and see if I've learned anything along the way.  Wish me luck.

Week 7

As promised, I went ahead and took the practice test.  I needed 80% to pass, and will on the actual test.  I scored 77%.  Missed it by .....that much.

From worst to best, I scored:
68% on networking
69% on laptops
77% on PC hardware
80% on printers
90% on operational procedures

A review of my misses shows me that, of the 13 questions I missed, there were only a couple that I had no clue about.  On most of them, there were two answers I liked and I chose the wrong one of the two.  There were a couple in there that, upon review, were incredibly obvious had I read the question and answers better.

I'm allowed unlimited access to the practice test for the next month, so I now have an idea of what I'll need to review.  I'm planning to take a break from the computer for now and then I'll probably try again, specifying that I only get questions I haven't seen before.  If I end up with the same areas of weakness, I'll probably re-read the book on those subjects.

I'll update again after my next try.

Week 6

I've changed strategies a little bit this week.  I've purchased my exam voucher, along with a practice test and a retake voucher.  I'm hoping I won't need to retake the test, but the combo was a good deal compared to the regular price and even compared to the regular price of just the practice test and the regular test voucher.

What I'll do is take the practice test and study, if needed, based on my results there.  I feel I haven't been learning as much as I should be considering how much material is in the book I'm reading.  I'd estimate I know 75% or more of what's in the book already.  Of the other 25%, I imagine I'll retain a relatively small piece of that after reading the whole book.  I feel the net result is not worth the amount of time I'm putting into the book.

I'll be taking the practice test this week and I'll report the results here.  Wish me luck.  Or wish me a result equal to my knowledge of the subject, at least.

Week 5 Update

As discussed in our weekly meeting, here's my (now weekly) update for week 5.  I read a little less this past week due to a lot more reading in seminar.  Even without that, there's only so much I can tell you about my own reading.

Here's highlights:

Some of what I did read about was: installing input devices, installing output devices and all the associated, and possibly useless, information.  For example, the book goes into detail about every video standard ever (more than I think I'll ever need to know, at least).  CGA?  Does anyone even have a CGA monitor now.  320 X 200 with two colors.  I think my kids' toy cell phone has higher resolution.  Oh well.  They say I'll need to know some of this for the test, so I'll do my best to remember it until the test is over.

That said, I do think there is some relevant information that will be useful even after the test.  For example, I might need to know that USB 1.1 works up to 12 Mbps, USB 2.0 up to 480 Mbps, and 3.0 up to 5 Gbps.  I might not, since almost everything new from today forward will likely have 3.0, but I might drag out my 10 year old computer and want to work on it, so knowing about the past could come in handy.

If I'm really bored some day, I can get my Commodore 64 out and try to get it working again too.  The book did discuss modem commands.  I can get the C-64 running, and use its 300 baud modem to dial into, probably nothing since no one uses those any more either.  I'll keep looking for a use of the ancient history discussed in the book.

Next, I move on to printers.  I foresee learning more about dot-matrix printers than I knew back when I had one.  Check back next week to learn where the best place to get your ribbons re-inked is.

Week 3 update

As stated previously, there's really nothing exciting to report in my quest toward A+ certification.  No milestones, no seemingly insurmountable problems solved.  I continue to read and learn.  From what I've read and reviewed, my biggest trouble will be in the technical details.  

Knowing the details of  IDE vs. SATA, for example.  I can look at the devices or cables and obviously see the difference, but knowing the maximum speed or each, or knowing how to describe pin #1 on an IDE ribbon cable is a weakness of mine.  I just know things.

I equate it to giving directions.  I am not very good at giving directions because I 'just know' how to get someplace.  I don't know all the street names.  I don't take conscious note of landmarks.  I just get to where I need to get to.  I'm blessed with a pretty good sense of direction too.  Just recently, with my kids in Seattle, I took a road I'd never been on away from the city.  I had a destination in mind, but was pleasantly surprised when I ended up a block away from that destination even though I had little idea that road would actually lead me there.

In much that way, I've been able to assemble computers, troubleshoot them, and keep them working since I started with my Commodore Vic-20 back, ummm, a while ago.  As I read this last book before taking my A+ certification test, I just hope that the test ends up working out the same way as that trip from Seattle did.

Week 19 (9)
March 6, 2014

I just finished reading Reconciling Exhaustive Pattern Matching with Objects, by Chinawat Isradisaikul and Andrew C. Myers, and this is my response.

First off, I don't feel that this blog is the best arena for a response to this paper.  The paper is written at a high level and this blog is much more down to earth and informal.

Second, I lack enough knowledge to intelligently comment on the paper.  My impression, reading the beginning thoroughly and the rest sparingly, is that my knowledge of computer programming, object oriented computer programming in particular, has a large hole in it.  I have felt this way since I started learning Java without the concept of object orienting programming being taught first.  One of these days, perhaps it will 'click' and I'll grasp all these ideas I've been struggling to understand.

For now, I'll leave the meaningful commentary on this paper to anyone who understood it.

Week 15 (5)

This week's response was submitted via sos_submit as instructed.

After checking out fellow students' pages, I've decided to (re)focus my project time on becoming CompTIA certified.  I realize it's not original at all, but if I had thought of that at the beginning of SOS, that's what I would have jumped into.

Hopefully, by the end of the spring quarter, I'll have completed both CompTIA A+ 220-801 and CompTIA A+ 220-802, but I will take them one at a time and get as much done as possible.  In the event I finish both of those, I'll choose an MSCE certification and work on that.

Week 1

Studying Software Evolution Using Software Models 
http://sail.cs.queensu.ca/publications/pubs/Thomas-2012-SCP.pdf


Before reading this paper, it had not occurred to me that a statistical analysis of a computer program as done by the authors would be useful.  I still don't believe it is very useful to me.  I believe it is not that useful during a project.  I think the best use is during a post-mortem of a project to learn what might have been done incorrectly, and of course correctly, and use that information on the next project to make it more efficient.

An example that reinforces my argument is Figure 1 on page 6.  The authors show that, in general, as the two pieces of software aged and became bigger, they were able to extract more usable terms from them.  This seems like common sense to me.

My impression is that the work done by a programmer, or a team of programmers, whose work might be analyzed by this technique is driven by something other than the type of data this method gives them.  If I created a word processing program by myself, for example, where I focus my work each day could be driven by the latest bug discovered.  The next day, if I analyzed my work, it would be likely that I would discover that I worked on things related to that bug.

If I asked my new team of programmers to work on adding a feature to my word processor, I would likely discover that most of the work was subsequently done on that feature.  Therein lies what I see as the limited value of the technique during a project.  I could, the next day, see that the team, or an individual perhaps, had instead been working on the last bug.  I could then try to change the direction of the misdirected team or programmer.

All this, of course, is coming from someone who hasn't worked in a programming production environment.  Perhaps those who have would see this differently.

I also wonder how accurate the authors' seemingly arbitrary choices for some of the data are.  Not that they are inaccurate in their methods but that they might not be looking at the correct data.  For example, they state that they pruned the words that occur in less than 2% of documents and that occur in more than 80% of documents.  I have no idea if this is the best selection or not.  As sometimes occurs during studies of various types though, I wonder if these thresholds, among other things, might have been picked because they showed the outcome that favored the authors' point of view.