CLD Actual Exam vs Examples

[DailyDose]

I have to disagree with everyone on this.  My colleague and I (and he's a 5+ years LabVIEW exp. I'm 2.5 at the time) took the CLD test at NI week in Aug.  He and I both failed.  We both walked away from the test thinking that the test we took respectively was much more complicated and time necessary than the examples.  We both did the sample exams and graded each other and fully finished all 4 within a 4 hour time frame.  Neither one of us finished our test.  I'm not venting, trust me.  I just honestly believe the new tests are more difficult than the sample exams.

[453443474]

Oh.. Really. In fact, I am thinking about my exam;how complicated question I am going to get? Please advice how to prepare the exam myself to complete it in 4 hours.....I am going to appear for CLD exam in 10 days time.

Please advice.

Thanks

[crossrulz]

Based on what I have heard lately, if you can complete one of the practice exams in 4 hours, you should be fine.

But do remember that you can pass with only half of the functionality.  Make sure your style and documentation are there and that your application can run somewhat of a majority of the requirements.

[Stuart.Parkinson]

Just sat the CLD. Of the six of us who sat this session, I think I was the only one who actually finished, and even then I didn't really finish in that I did not have time to test the finished app and the documentation was a last minute rush. Most of the others came close but had parts of the functionality not implemented. It was tough.

I had done all 4 of the practice exams, and I would say that the actual exam task was probaby about 20% more complex than the practice exams.

If I knew exactly what I was doing and just had to code, it would have been challenging to complete it all to high standards of style and documentation in the 4 hours. Add in the fact you have to study and understand the requirement, design your architecture and state machine states and transitions etc. and it becomes very challenging indeed.

All I can say is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Do all the sample exams (I was amazed at the number of candidates who hadn't) - and do each one several times, each with different architectural approaches. In the exam you need to decide, "do I use a plain state machine and poll the controls, do I use an event structure in the state machine, or a separate event loop and a queue, or put the state machine in the timeout event, or...?" - well, do each exam several times using each different approach and you soon get to see the subtle differences which make one more efficeient to code for one application but not another. Then in the exam you will see very quickly which approach is best (not necessarily your favourite 'go to' architecture) and can start coding much sooner and more efficiently.

Still waiting on the results - fingers crossed 🙂 . I would wish all candidates good luck, but honestly, you make your own luck in the preparation.

[DailyDose]

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@crossrulz wrote:

Based on what I have heard lately, if you can complete one of the practice exams in 4 hours, you should be fine.

But do remember that you can pass with only half of the functionality.  Make sure your style and documentation are there and that your application can run somewhat of a majority of the requirements.

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If this is true, then I would argue that my colleague and I should have passed when we took the test.  Granted there's a biased on my end, but my code was easily more than 3/4 of the way there with solid documentation.  Course, I can't really speak for my colleague, but I do know he's way smarter and better at programming than I am.  I wonder if the fact that the fire alarm went off in the middle of our test had anything to do with it. Hmmmmm...

[DailyDose]

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@453443474 wrote:

Oh.. Really. In fact, I am thinking about my exam;how complicated question I am going to get? Please advice how to prepare the exam myself to complete it in 4 hours.....I am going to appear for CLD exam in 10 days time.

Please advice.

Thanks

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My advice, make sure you can successfully throw down a timing VI and a write/read data VI in all formats (text, ini, etc.) quickly.  Do those things quickly then go to work on the rest of the project.  Other than that, sample exams and the CLD prep stuff should be helfpul.  But again, these new test are indeed more complicated than the old ones.  If you are completing the old ones with 0 time to spare, then you'll need to think about where you're spending too much time and adjust accordingly.

[JÞB]

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@DailyDose wrote:

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@453443474 wrote:

Oh.. Really. In fact, I am thinking about my exam;how complicated question I am going to get? Please advice how to prepare the exam myself to complete it in 4 hours.....I am going to appear for CLD exam in 10 days time.

Please advice.

Thanks

---

My advice, make sure you can successfully throw down a timing VI and a write/read data VI in all formats (text, ini, etc.) quickly.  Do those things quickly then go to work on the rest of the project.  Other than that, sample exams and the CLD prep stuff should be helfpul.  But again, these new test are indeed more complicated than the old ones.  If you are completing the old ones with 0 time to spare, then you'll need to think about where you're spending too much time and adjust accordingly.

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Actually, The new tests are quite a bit simpler.  Anyone (myself) who sat the old ATM exam may still have nightmares about requirements for FONT (size, justification and spelling!)  If I could type I would probably never have learned LabVIEW!

Thankfully that exam has been retired.  And yes, it was severly lobotomized before it became a practice exam.  Before you ask, yes I failed that try. 

[DailyDose]

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@JÞB wrote:

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@DailyDose wrote:

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@453443474 wrote:

Oh.. Really. In fact, I am thinking about my exam;how complicated question I am going to get? Please advice how to prepare the exam myself to complete it in 4 hours.....I am going to appear for CLD exam in 10 days time.

Please advice.

Thanks

---

My advice, make sure you can successfully throw down a timing VI and a write/read data VI in all formats (text, ini, etc.) quickly.  Do those things quickly then go to work on the rest of the project.  Other than that, sample exams and the CLD prep stuff should be helfpul.  But again, these new test are indeed more complicated than the old ones.  If you are completing the old ones with 0 time to spare, then you'll need to think about where you're spending too much time and adjust accordingly.

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Actually, The new tests are quite a bit simpler.  Anyone (myself) who sat the old ATM exam may still have nightmares about requirements for FONT (size, justification and spelling!)  If I could type I would probably never have learned LabVIEW!

Thankfully that exam has been retired.  And yes, it was severly lobotomized before it became a practice exam.  Before you ask, yes I failed that try. 

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Granted, the old tests required you throw down your own Front Panel.  But that's more timing consuming and just plain ol' minutiae.  In terms of complication... another story.  Which is why I say, "If you complete the old ones with 0 time to spare...etc."  The practice exams have the FP available so the actual programming part of it should not take you 4 hours.  I would suggest getting the practice exams done in under 3.

[Jacobson-ni]

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@JÞB wrote:

If I could type I would probably never have learned LabVIEW!

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I can't imagine being graded on my spelling, especially without the ability to just open chrome and butcher a word until google told me how to spell it correctly.

[Hooovahh]

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@Jacobson-ni wrote:

I can't imagine being graded on my spelling, especially without the ability to just open chrome and butcher a word until google told me how to spell it correctly.

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I agree, but if I was on a computer without internet, I would just keep re-wording the comment until it meant the same, but used words I was more confident in the spelling of.