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Certification
Timing CLD practice exams
Hi,
I wanted to bring up this topic for those who are preparing for taking the CLD.
As you know there is a four hour limit for taking the exam. While preparing for the exam, using all the materials, webcast, and the certification discussion board, it is important ... , no critical, to clear your schedule and time yourself for a four hour exam. Twice. 
Many developers get caught in the time crunch, both in their daily activities and in the test. Putting yourself in the position of having to face a hard deadline for completing the exam is a great wake up call. You don't want that call to be during the actual exam.
Timing your practice exams is a great way to experience the psychological pressures you will face during the four hours.
There is a wide spectrum of programmers that take the CLD, experienced pros, those who use it once or twice a week at work, advanced beginners, and all other experience levels. Preparing with a strict time limit gives all the broad spectrum of candidates the opportunity to see where their personal methods support or hinder the effort to complete in four hours.
In general, take no more than thirty minutes to read the specification, understand the specification, and plan your design.
Again, generally speaking, the last thirty minutes should not be used as a "last ditch" effort to start a new piece of functionality or race to a last minute addition. If a bug is introduced in this last half hour, the damage done to overall functionality could be much worse than the potential gain. One good use of the last thirty minutes is to continue testing integrated modules/SubVI's, to fix small discrepancies , to make one more verification that what you have already programmed is working correctly. One of my clients used to tell me "test, test, Test !"
Of course, it is impossible to give directions that will meet all individual methods. This is why taking a practice exam under strict time limits is a HUGE suggested best practice. You get to see first hand how your strategies and test taking methods fit the four hour time limit. You can plan and prepare your solution and methods, but until you time it firsthand, you are only measuring your knowledge of the methods. In most cases, nothing teaches faster than timing your sample exam and learning from your own mistakes.
If you are struggling with both implementation and timing, complete one practice exam without time, then take it again , timed, with just three and a half hours limit as you already know the specification.
One time saver is to document and label as you program. While you are in a section of code, document what that case, SubVI, or algorithm is doing. Right at the point of conception it is easy to jot down a one line description. Waiting until the end and then documenting all the work you have done is not as efficient as documenting "in the moment". You might be testing in the last thirty minutes and run out of time to document the complete application. Also, when you are working with already documented code, you are giving yourself a road map as you integrate modules or add functionality to the application. Try this while you are taking the practice exam.
I hope you find this advice helpful and something to think about, but more importantly I hope I have convinced you to take some practice exams with strict time limits. Although I have touched on a few topics, the focus here is to promote the timing your CLD practice exams in preparing for the CLD.
I'm seeing a lot of the same advice going around. Which makes me wonder how much of this advice is actually making it to people.
The biggest help as far as time for me was the document as you go. If only I could get the rest of my team to do the same with normal projects...
