CompuServe Messages

Bill, <<While this has the potential to be true for the General Knowledge (multiple choice and fill in the blanks) questions, you'll be hard pressed to "Cliff Notes" your way through the Drawing problems. Keep in mind that the General Knowledge questions are not only randomized, but they'll be acquired from a "pool" of Drawing Type, Layering Type, Dimensioning Type, or Plotting Type of questions.>> My point is, that a high school of a two-year tech school student, who has spend considerable time working with AutoCAD over a period of time (hands on in a class room environment) could meet the criteria that you have just outlined and pass even the drawing problems. Give these student credit, there are many bright and intelligent CAD users coming out of high school programs now. There level of expertise may be high, but they lack the PRACTICAL knowledge gained from day-to-day application of AutoCAD. I was at an AutoCAD users group meeting last night and ran into several individuals, including one with 8,000 hours of hands-on experience with AutoCAD who was not aware of how to de-select items from a selection set by doing a SHIFT-Select or how GRIPS worked. Does that handicap him as a AutoCAD user? NO! I talked to one company who weeds out potential employees by giving them an in house CAD test as part of the interview process. Being certifed "AutoCAD" is not as important to them as bringing practical knowledge of how to apply AutoCAD. <<The test is being validated (at every taking) by Drake Training and Technologies. This is the company that actually administers and monitors the test. We as the "board" simply build and manage the tests, but the folks at Drake are tracking its every "burp". We know right away if questions or drawing problems are invalid, worded incorrectly, too easy, too hard, or simply too lame!! With this triangular team (Autodesk, the Exam Board, and Drake) we have some well established checkpoints to weed out the Cliff Notes operators…. >> Does DRAKE keep demographics on the ACE? If not, why? Everything is "being tracked. . ." and if so this information should be compliled for analysis. I would like to see the statistics. Thanks, Steve