LFCS Domains and Competencies V3.18 and LFS201

david.lilly

Is LFS201 being updated to align with the upcoming program changes for the LFCS certification exam?

Thanks,

David

 

 

fcioanca

Hi, LFS201 has been aligned with the upcoming new domains and competencies since December 2017.
Regards,
Flavia

Batlin

Hi all,

I just finished the LFS201 course and I'm thinking on taking the LFCS exam during this month.

I'd like to ask you about the Service Configuration topic that is not covered by LFS201 and now, with the upcoming v3.18 domains, it scores 20% instead 10%. Therefore, it looks like an important topic then.

Could you please point me to any useful resource to prepare those topics? I'm confused as I thought those topics were more LFCE related.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards,

EmmaWright

Hi Batlin, and anyone thinking of scheduling an exam soon.  I just sat my exam which was a complete disaster, I was hopelessly underprepared.  You are correct, don't rely only on LFS201 course material to get you through, you'll have to research the rest from the internet. You need to be fully practiced on all elements in the comptencies list to stand a chance, and by fully practiced I mean, not needing to think about what to do, just getting on and doing it, knowing the sequences & standard options for each command from memory.

If anyone from the LF team wants to contact me I am prepared to give some constructive feedback about this experience. 

Batlin

Thanks for your feedback EmmaWright. I hope you are more lucky next time!

So, is there any official resource for Service Configuration topic? Any suggestions to prepare for that?

Best regards,

coop

There's a lot of knowledge covered by LFCS and while LFS201 also has a lot of material -- it is by far the longest e-learning course the LInux Foundation offers, there is no way it can cover every possible topic on the exam.

In particular we always try to make clear that all exam takers should have the knowlege eaquivalent to taking the LFS101x course at edx.org, and recommend you take that before, or while taking LFS201, or at least inspect its coverage.  FOr example it covers editors, bash and scripting and getting help, none of which is covered in LFS201.

We have been very careful to "not teach the exam only" as that would produce ill-prepared system administrators and users.

It is indeed unfortunate that there are some topics listed on the "services" section that are not fullly (or even at all) covered in LFS201.  There are several reasons for this.  1) There is no way a short question/problem can likely be done on the exam -- you can't set up and test some complicated server in say 20 minutes. 2) The topic is just too advanced and would take too long to cover.  Most items like this are also covered in LFCE and LFS211.  3)There is just too much material already in LFS201, adding more can overwhelm people, especially if they are unlikely to use it.

Two final points:  1) The certification exam writers are separated from the training staff course designers by a firewall, so we actually simply do not know what is on the exam.  This is done so we don't just teach to the exam, but we design a course so professionals are adequately trained according to criteria we aim for.  2) Exams are designed by commitees which make consensus decisions which unfortunately leads to too much in the list and too much coverage duplicated in LFCS and LFCE.   The new versions of the exams are far better than the old ones in this regard but it is hard to reach perfection.

Finally, keep in mind, unlike any other Linux Certification program I know of we give a free retake.  Knowing this helps a lot of students to relax better going into the exam and view it as practice and actually increases their chance of passing.

Emma:  The certfication staff is always willing to listen to your experiences in taking the exam as this kind of feedback is good for all concerned.  Please email training@linuxfoundation.org with this -- they will probably see this post anyway, but the email is a more direct route.

 

 

jengel

Although I can understand that the course writers should not not know the exam questions, I would expect the exam writers to understand the course content and possibly review it (even if it include multiple courses). If there is misalignment e.g. topics not covered at all they should flag this to course creators.

 

Alternatively the exam + course creators should at least agree more closely on the topics and their scope.

 

Having a free re-exam should not be used as an excuse as there are no guarantee anyway that a person will get the exact same questions in both exams. Also failing an exam is not meant to the an instruction method in itself.

 

Finally, think if Linux is so hard and so wide for the exam and course creators to cover (with their resources and years of experience), how can the learners be expected to. Maybe it is too wide and should be broken into smaller exams or focussed narrowed with clearer separation between LFCS and LFCE.

coop

We do express our concerns to exam writers and that led to improved clarity in the new exam verfsions.  However, we have no control over their actions and they do not on ours.  Keep in mind the exam writers do not work for the Linux FOundation, they are a broad community of stake holders across the industry including distribution representatives.

We do not mention failure as a training tool, we just tell people to take a deep breath and not stress out so much they fall apart on exam day.  Free retakes is an enormous benefit noone else gives.  I do not know if they get different exams each time.  Also not something we are privy too.

Finally, having more courses and more certifications makes life more difficult for people, not better.  Please note the LF does *not* directly give certicication in more advanced topics, such as those Red Hat gives.  Since we don't teach a particular product that would be relatively futile.  Our exam certification staff does work on other exams for other collabortiatve projects, such as Kubernetes and OpenStack, but these are not LF certicfications.

No course is a substitute for taking the time to explore more widely and mroe deeply.  That's just the way it is.

jengel

@coop said:

No course is a substitute for taking the time to explore more widely and mroe deeply.  That's just the way it is.

Totally agree.

CarloMartini

Since it's recognized that the exam implies knowledge of topics not covered by LFS201, shouldn't course takers at least have an official and updated list of recommended free resources to fill the gap? For basics there's EdX's course, but what about more advanced topics?

coop

https://training.linuxfoundation.org/resources/publications/certification-preparation-guide/

This is by no means a complete list of possible free resources. There are zillions of them easily found on the web. But it is a good start