Time management and how to approach CLA.

[LV_COder]

Hello All,

Preparing for CLA,  any one please guide or suggestions on how to approach the CLA exam and how to manage overall time.

Any strategy regarding above?

Thanks 

Hemant 

[FJD · Accepted solution]

Hello Hemant,

My experience with the CLA is that you should practice a lot the sample exams. You should know before you take the exam the way you will be doing things. The scenarios are all the same, and you will only have to adapt the strategy to a particular case. Practicing the samples will give you your own time targets.

One pratical point regarding the requirements : be sure to copy / paste from the text file provided, but I would also recomment to mark the requirements that you fullfilled in the text file. I remember having fullfilled some requirements and not having copied the tags... Sometimes, the line between succes and failure is so thin !

François

CLA

[kosist90]

I was following more "lazy" way. Sample exams show you different types of architecture approaches. I've selected the one which is more suitable for me, and tried to implement by it not the all task, but one functional module + error handling; because implementing all the task is a bit boring, and during preparation does not make sense, as for me - after some point its a matter of "mechanical" work, nothing more. The main work you do while creating module architecture, its main parts (event handling, consumer loop, API VIs, error handling).
Because if you'll check, then all functional modules are the same, they have the same base. Error handling is different type, but even it could be partially implemented based on functional module. So if you'd train yourself if fast creation of module template, then fill in its particular functionallity will be easier task. If you could handle implement error handle module completely, and template for functional module within an hour, it should be enough to finish the CLA on time (or at least most of it). It worked for me, so that's why I advice this also; if you do not have much time for preparation, or you don't want to implement sample exams fully.

Sincerely, kosist90

[LV_COder]

Thanks kosist90, 

I have doing the same way that you have suggested, I have doing full sample exam. 

As you have about the requirement. 

I have one  thing that  i am facing is not able to complete all requirement place,  some  tags are not able to tag in the application.

Still needed more pratices. 

Any more suggestion is appriceted. 

Hemant 

[Gregory]

Hi Hemant,

My strategy was to make 2 template libraries, one with just a loop to receive messages (for things like error handler, process controller, etc.) and one with the message loop as well as an event handling loop (for anything with a user interface element). Then I made copies of this template for each module, where the scenario generally breaks down the modules for you. 

Then I work in phases from high level to low level functionality. First I made a launcher. Then I added states I would need to each module's state enum. Then add comments in each state about what should happen and what the developer should do. Then I spent the end making wrappers (API calls) for the module, and dropping them into the process controller where I thought the developer might need them. As far as I know, actually placing the SubVIs is not necessary, and a comment should suffice.

On my first practice test this took over 5 hours, but after 2 or 3 more, I got it down to 3 hours. The actual test seemed to have a bit fewer requirements than some of the examples, so that was nice.