CTD and CTA Practice Exams

[JaganT]

I passed the CTD and the practice exams were extremely helpful!  Without them it will be very difficult.  You guys are awesome!!

[~jiggawax~]

Congrats!  That is great news.

[logicalasad]

A question for the community: 

What is a good time to take the CTA, given you have passed the CTD? 

Should they be done close together. 

Or one can also try to pass the CTA, when the CTD certificate is close to expiring. 

Because if you have CTA, I probably covers the CTD as well. 

Thoughts? 

Regards,

Asad

[~jiggawax~]

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@logicalasad wrote:

A question for the community: 

What is a good time to take the CTA, given you have passed the CTD? 

Should they be done close together. 

Or one can also try to pass the CTA, when the CTD certificate is close to expiring. 

Because if you have CTA, I probably covers the CTD as well. 

---

My opinion is you should take the CTA once you have modified or created 2 or more of the following: User Interface, Process Model, Plugins, Front-End Callback, or Resource Strings

[J.C._Andersen]

Hi.

Some of my colleges have been using these test questions to train for the CTD and now the CTA. But I have a few questions for you regarding the practice question.

• In the CTD-practice questions there are some CVI specific questions. As I remember it there are none of those in the real exams from NI, since you are not required to know CVI to take the exam. In general, when you take the courses you will do the exercises in the code environment you feel most at home in, and if you know none of them, I think LabVIEW is the go-to environment. So, would it not be better to omit the CVI specific questions?
• In the CTA practice questions there is a question that refers to the concept of a "secondary process model". I have not been able to find any reference to this anywhere in the "Architecting Test Systems Using TestStand" course. The question refers to lesson 4, but in which course is that? In the "Architecting Test Systems Using TestStand" course lesson 4 is on custom step types.
• In general, there are some typing mistakes and some missing words in the questions. This is in general not something that I have a problem with, I make a lot of that kind of mistakes myself. But when it leads misunderstandings and thus wrong answers it is a problem.

I guess that I am trying to state that for such practice questions to have any real value, they need to be very tight with the course material and that form we can expect from the real exam. And they need a solid review process, to boost the quality.

[~jiggawax~]

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@J.C._Andersen wrote:

• In the CTD-practice questions there are some CVI specific questions. As I remember it there are none of those in the real exams from NI, since you are not required to know CVI to take the exam. In general, when you take the courses you will do the exercises in the code environment you feel most at home in, and if you know none of them, I think LabVIEW is the go-to environment. So, would it not be better to omit the CVI specific questions?

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I just pulled from the manual.  You can just skip the CVI questions if you don't like them.

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@J.C._Andersen wrote:

• In the CTA practice questions there is a question that refers to the concept of a "secondary process model". I have not been able to find any reference to this anywhere in the "Architecting Test Systems Using TestStand" course. The question refers to lesson 4, but in which course is that? In the "Architecting Test Systems Using TestStand" course lesson 4 is on custom step types.

  ---

When these questions were written they were based off of TestStand 2011 and the manual for it.  A secondary model is a model that has model callbacks but the main process model also has to have them in it so the client file can "see" it.  Here is a link with more info: https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/Secondary-Process-Model/td-p/1859687

This link also talks about an idea I had so people wouldn't need to customize the process model but could use callbacks from their secondary model: https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand-Idea-Exchange/Create-a-configurable-Model-Callback-list/idi-p/...

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@J.C._Andersen wrote:

• In general, there are some typing mistakes and some missing words in the questions. This is in general not something that I have a problem with, I make a lot of that kind of mistakes myself. But when it leads misunderstandings and thus wrong answers it is a problem.

---

Yeah, sorry about that.  This was something I threw together quickly.  Please note that this is not owned, nor supported, by NI.  This is just me attempting to help out the community.  This is a free practice exam and nobody is required to use it for preparation.  I've been meaning to go through and update it, but more important things have been in the way.

If anyone feels that they have failed one of the exams due to misinformation in these exams I am truly sorry.  I recommend using all of your resources, including TestStand, to prepare for the exam.

Hope this helps,

[PalanivelThiruvenkadam]

HI All,

I am planning to take CTA (Preparation in progress) in Couple of weeks i have gone through "Architecting Test Systems Using TestStand Exercise Guide".

Taking Practice Exam at multiple Times to Answer  Max Number of Questions.

I will be grateful if someone can provide the topics which i need to be more clear before taking actual exam.

[~jiggawax~]

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@PalanivelThiruvenkadam wrote:

HI All,

I am planning to take CTA (Preparation in progress) in Couple of weeks i have gone through "Architecting Test Systems Using TestStand Exercise Guide".

Taking Practice Exam at multiple Times to Answer  Max Number of Questions.

I will be grateful if someone can provide the topics which i need to be more clear before taking actual exam.

---

Your best bet is to read and understand the TestStand II manual that goes with this course: http://sine.ni.com/tacs/app/overview/p/ap/of/lang/en/pg/1/sn/n24:1335/id/1604/

If you can understand everything in there you will ace the exam.

[TwinCoast4K]

Hi Guys,

I took CTD exam and got the passed today! Extremely relief from this and would be able to move forward. 

I will say, test itself not that easy as my expectation. I had few years experience to develop sequential model test rountine and have never joined any NI course.

I went through TestStand I few times before book the test. Questions are tricky and need you either have solid theory or lots of experiences using teststand.

jiggawax's CTD question portal are helpful and build my confidence to sit in the exam room anyway. (kudos for him without BBQ 🙂 ) 

[Raj.LabviewArchitect]

Hi guys,

I have a doubt in the new format of the CTD exam. In the new format, there are some requirements to customize station settings. These modifications are specific to the system and will not get reflected in another system if I submit only my sequence. What is the procedure to submit the code after completion? Should I submit the sequence along with the configuration file? or should I create a deployment along with the configuration file and submit the deployment?

In the CTD Prep guide document, it is mentioned to zip only the sequence file using the CTD_StudentZipUp.exe.