"CERT Boot Camp"

http://www.ExamsAreEasy.com

Issue 5 -- Monday, November 19th, 2001

CERT Boot Camp is (normally!) published at the beginning of each

month.

================================================================

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. A WORD FROM THE EDITOR

2. ARTICLE: THE IMPORTANCE OF HANDS ON PRACTISE AND HOW TO MAKE

THE MOST OF YOUR TIME WITH IT.

3. WEBSITE OF THE MONTH: THE CERTIFICATION SHACK

4. JOKE

5. CONTACT CERT BOOT CAMP

================================================================

1. A WORD FROM THE EDITOR:

Welcome to your CERT Boot Camp Ezine. Please accept

my apologies for the lateness of the ezine this month. I will

try to do better for the Christmas issue next month, when you

will see an article entitled "The Pitfalls of a Career in I.T.

and How YOU Can Overcome Them" … I hope you’ll look forward to

reading that one as much as I am looking forward to writing it!

Your feedback is always much appreciated. What topics would you

like to see in future issues? Please drop me a line with your

requests!

================================================================

2. ARTICLE: THE IMPORTANCE OF HANDS ON PRACTISE – AND HOW TO

MAKE THE MOST OF IT.

Everywhere that I look on the Internet these days, there seem to

be more and better resources for us certification students,

including educational games, free tutorials and even

simulations.

While all of these resources are valuable and many can be used

to reduce the amount of study time you will need to learn each

topic, it’s important not to lose sight of the irreplaceable

importance of hands-on practice with the product you are to be

examined on.

What’s so important about spending time doing hands-on stuff?

While certification is often seen as a route into a job, you

don’t want to appear incompetent once you DO land the job that

you want, so it is vital that you are familiar with using the

interface of the product that you are certified on.

First impressions are really important, and even just having the

confidence to quickly access an application and use a couple of

basic functions within it, while appearing blasé and confident,

is often enough to convince your colleagues that you are

genuinely literate with it. If you have a certification in that

product, then it’s even more important to give this impression,

of course.

Also, there is nothing quite like hands-on practise for helping

you memorise material for your exams. Why? Mainly because you

are involving all of your senses in the experience.

Human memory works best when you are fully involved in an

experience, using lots of senses including:

• Feeling/Touch (e.g. your keyboard and mouse)
• Movement (e.g. the movement of your fingers, the movement of
  your cursor on the screen)

• Numbers
• Symbols/Images (e.g. icons, shortcuts)
• Color
• Order and Sequence (e.g. the order of menu items in an
  application)
• Spatial Awareness (e.g. where different objects are on the
  screen)

As you can see, hands-on practise usually incorporates most of

the above.

Other important things that aid memory are:

• Humor
• Sexuality (yes, really!!)
• Positive Images (your mind likes to dwell on and remember
  these, as opposed to negative or depressing ones.)
• Exaggeration

So how can you use THESE ones? Best tip of all is to go ahead

and ENJOY your hands-on practise sessions! Make a game of it,

find as much as you can that’s humorous about the interface, and

if anything catches your eye that you can interpret in a funny

or sexual way, then do so (within reason where the latter is

concerned, PLEASE!)

While hands-on practise is clearly of vital importance,

sometimes it is possible to spend more time than is warranted on

it, without getting the maximum benefit. This is usually due to

your goals not being clearly defined.

The best way to structure your hands-on time, in my opinion, is

to make a list of tasks/exercises/questions as you are doing

your book work.

Then, when you come to your hands-on time, set yourself a

certain amount of time to spend on it, and a certain number of

objectives to complete. You will find that you are much more

focussed and that you are able to get much more done, in much

less time, by being highly goal-oriented during your practise

sessions.

Finally, if you are struggling to write down

objectives/exercises as you are working, it’s always a good idea

to refer back to the skills matrix for the exam you are

preparing for, and use that as a guide – people often forget

about this but at the end of the day it is what the exam is

based on!

================================================================

3. WEB SITE REVIEW: THE CERTIFICATION SHACK

A super site with tests, product reviews, chat rooms and all

sorts of other certification resources! Someone has obviously

put in a lot of work for you to enjoy this site.

================================================================

4. JOKE – You Know You’ve Been On Your Computer Too Long When…

• When you are reading a book and look for the space bar to get
  to the next page.
• When after fooling around all day with routers etc, you pick
  up the phone and start dialling an IP number.
• When you get in the elevator and double-press the button for
  the floor you want.
• When not only do you check your email more often than your
  paper mail, but you remember your network address faster than
  your postal one.
• You're writing a homework assignment, and get the end of the
  line in the middle of a sentence, tack on a '\', and continue
  writing on the next line.
• When your wife says, "If you don't turn off that darn machine
  and come to bed, then I am going to divorce you!" and you
  chastise her for omitting the else clause.

================================================================

5. CONTACT CERT BOOT CAMP

Do you have any CERT, techie or career questions? Do you want to

share your thoughts? Would you like to share a top tip with

other subscribers? If so, please send Cassie an email to:

cassiesimons@nospamExamsAreEasy.com (removing the "nospam").

================================================================

Your FREE subscription to The CERT Boot Camp ezine is brought to

you by the ExamsAreEasy website. If you enjoy this ezine,

chances are you will love Cassie’s unique approach to exam

taking, explained in her e-book, "How to Pass Your MCSD/MCSE Quickly

and Easily".

Click NOW to get this vital resource working for you today:

http://www.ExamsAreEasy.com

New to the list? Backissues can be found on the web at:

http://www.ExamsAreEasy.com/archives.html/

If you haven’t already, please forward this newsletter to a

friend or colleague. I do appreciate your help!

Copyright © 2001 Cassie Simons.

================================================================