Solaris Certification Exams Strategy

How to Prepare for Solaris Certification

Sun Certified System Administrator Exam for Solaris 9, part I (CX-310-014)

Sun Certified System Administrator for the Solaris 9, Part II of II

A Slightly Skeptical Notes on SA-299 Topics

You need to use some strategy for each of two Solaris exams. One of the possible strategies is so called binary strategy that somewhat reminds quicksort algorithm: on each pass you split questions into to more or less equal half and answer only eraler part. Generally you probably will be able to make three three passes over the questions and on each pass you answer only "easer half" leaving more difficult questions for later. None of such strategies is infallible but just having one can help.

Initial conditions. There will be 60 questions presented to you: 58 that counts toward the results and two experimental question that don't. The max number of questions that you can answer incorrectly and still pass are 20 for both 014 and 015 exams. You need to remember this number. You have 105 min = 1h 45 min to answer them. It might be beneficial to bring to the exam the watches with timer like Timex, but Sun provides the running timer of the time left on the screen which is good enough...
You need to get to the site at least 30 minutes before the exam, so that you can browse you summaries of the exam topics, for example SA-299 topics the last time. That's might help with to recover the exact names of options and names of configuration files for topics with which you have little practical experience (for example, NIS, SVM, etc). If you notes consist of 30 pages then 30 minutes is a reasonable estimate of time required to browse then the last time (if you have more then 30 pages of notes you might be better off cutting them to this max size :-)
The first pass. During the first pass you need to preview the test and answer the easiest half of the questions, the questions that you know how to answer for sure. Mark and skip the rest (do not put any answers into question for which you have "reasonable doubt" about correctness of your answer.
- Read the question at least twice before answering it. Ensure that you understand it before answering. Note special words. If correct answer is immediately evident answer this question, if not skip it. In such mode for 60 questions it takes approximately 40-60 minutes to complete the first pass (depends on how many times you need to read each question in order fully to understand it; for some question this is very difficult and requires a dozen of reading of the question stem and the proposed answers).
- During this pass the splitting of the test questions into two more or less equal parts occurs naturally as most probably you will be able to answer only approximately half of the questions with reasonable certainty about the correctness of the answers.
- While the gel pad that you are given is marginally usable you can still note fragments of the questions (for example configuration file used in the question) grouping them into four-five key topics (NFS&Automounter, RAID&SVM, ACL&RBAC, NIS, Jumpstart & flash archives) to simplify the next stage. You can do it in a form
  
  topic1: q1 : short note (plausible choices, info, links to other questions, etc)
  q2 : short note
  ....
  
  topic2: q1: short note
  
  That might later help to find connections between questions that belong to the same topic.
Notes:
1. The number of questions you managed to answer on the first pass is very important. Feel lucky if you managed to answer more then 30 -- your level of preparation looks good or there is good match between the distribution of questions in the test and the topics that you know well (all such test are somewhat like a poker: you can get a good hand and a bad hand ;-) With over 30 questions answered quickly (and let's hope correctly) your chances to pass are substantially improved
2. No matter how confident you are in the answers expect that two or three questions were answered incorrectly anyway because you misread the question and/or strange ideas about the right answer of the test developer .
3. Let's assume that his stage you answered exactly 30 questions and answered incorrectly three of them [-3].
[Break 1] Take a short (one or two minutes) break.
The second pass is the most challenging part of the exam (the first pass that was just warm-up). You task on this pass is to browse only questions that you marked on the previous pass and correctly answer approximately half of remaining question using less then an hour. Even if you jaw dropped because of the difficulty of some of those questions you still have a chance as you have approximately 2 minutes per question. Like during the first pass during this second pass you need to answer the easiest questions first. You need gradually separate them into two halves (you can use two passes for that, see below) and answer the first, the easiest.
- You need to consult your notes, previous of later questions and use elimination (sometime elimination of wrong answer bring you to a single "plausible" answer even if you do not know if it is correct on not, you just know that others are definitely incorrect. Another helpful technique is grouping the questions into the SA-299 topics and finding connections between questions that belong to the same topic.
- As you might not be able to come to a certain selection based just on your knowledge or the elimination strategy use the contextual clues that you can derive from other questions for the topic, if any. Some important information like exact names of certain configuration files can be accidentally used on other, often positioned later question(s).
- Write relevant fragments of related questions on the pad creating some kind of cross reference.
Look at the number of questions that you managed to answer up to this point and subtract the estimate of errors along the line presented above: that will be your status after the second stage.
With adequate preparation you can expect that only approximately 1/3 of those questions that you managed to answer can be answered incorrectly (if this was exactly 15 questions then you lost five questions on this stage [-5] or total 7 question in our artificial example)
[Break 2] Take a short (one or two minutes) break.
On the third pass you just try to guess correct answer for the rest of the questions, which I suppose are the questions about topics/issues that you have almost no clue.
- The key here is to have less then 15 questions left. You chances deteriorate considerably if there are more then 15 questions left.
- If, say 15 questions left you probably have some vague ideas about possible answers for 1/3 of them. Again concentrate on the easiest questions and chose the most plausible answer, but do not spend too much time thinking about it (not much time was left anyway; keep some time cushion of, say, 10 minutes). In fact you already has the background for those questions and your brain was working on those questions for some time. Rely on your brain intuition. If you have no clue chose always the same answer (you need to choice whether this should be first, last of, say, second from the bottom answer, but it should always be the same: the test creator try to distribute correct answers and this way you can hit on some). Maximize use of typical multiple choice question tests heuristics:
  - "All of the above" is often a correct response. If you can verify that more than one of the other responses is probably correct, then it's logical to choose "all of the above."
  - If there is an error that you can notice is one answer avoid other answers that contain them
- You are running out of time at this stage so you need to do it quickly: just click, click, click all remaining questions.
Depending on your previous results you probably will be able to guest correctly at least one or, if you are lucky, two of the questions correctly [ in case of exactly 15 questions left that means you lost 14 questions; that brings us to the total of -19 or -20 in our artificial example; still OK for passing the exam; and it all that matter ]
Use allocated time (usually 105 min = 1h 45 min) fully. If some time left you can just calmly think about the questions and may be some "enlightenment" will come about one of questions already answered (or guessed) based on the info on your pad.
- Remember that theoretically at this point you have only 19 questions or less answered incorrectly and your chances to pass are not bad.
- Correct obvious error if something comes to your mind.
- If you have enough time you can browse the questions again, but do not correct your initial guess unless you are reasonably sure: my impression is that the first guest is usually the best.
- Submit you test approximately 5-10 min before the end of allocated time. Never submit too early unless you are confident that there you lost less then 10 questions (most people are optimists :-). Rush can cost you $150.

After the exam the software printout will tell you whether you've passed or failed. Ask for the printout in case administrator did not print it. It can help you to prepare for another round, if necessary, or to the next round. Certificates are mailed one week after the exam is completed. As stated in Certification - Policies and Agreement

Sun has a 2-week minimum waiting period before a candidate may attempt to re-take any test. In addition, a candidate may not attempt to take a test more than three (3) times within any calendar year without written permission from the Sun Certification Program Manager.