Exam Preparedness

andrewpartrickmiller

Hello,

My understanding is that this course is targeted at preparing us for the JavaScript Node.js Application Developer Certification (JSNAD) https://training.linuxfoundation.org/certification/jsnad/

I am a bit worried because I don't know how to determine my readiness. Please help me come up with a loose metric to determine preparedness.

I am wondering if we thoroughly understand and complete all of the labs and knowledge checks is that sufficient for the exam.

Are there any supplemental exercises that we can do in addition to the Labs?

Will the difficulty of the exam be around the same difficulty as the labs more or less?

Andrew Miller

davidmarkclements

@mbaltus summarises it well. @fcioanca is absolutely correct about the approach as well: both the exam and the training are designed around pragmatic pedagogy. If you can complete the exercises in the training and you've taken then time to understand the way the pieces of that exercise can be recomposed into similar implementations with slightly different requirements then you'll be ready for the exam

fcioanca

The course is considered a good preparation for the exam, but it's not teaching the exam. We always emphasize that you should practice skills and knowledge as much and as often as possible in addition to the course. The exam is hands on, so the more you practice, the better prepared you will be.

andrewpartrickmiller

How are we supposed to tell if we are ready?

dtravailloux

Interesting question..I am interested too

mbaltus

Just having passed the exam (I did cost me my retake, I failed with 55 points the first time around), I'd say that if you can comfortably make all the exercises out of the LFW211 course with only looking at the nodejs.org documentation (and optionally mdn mozilla javascript documentation), then you can consider yourself ready.

I didn't know what to expect, so went for the first try (and failed). But that gave me a good impression of how I needed to do the exam and also at which points I was struggling. This allowed me to study some more in these areas. (i.e. you do not get feedback on what you did right or wrong, but I determined that based on what topics I found difficult or did not succeed in).

Good luck with your exams

coop

Congratulations!

samaybhavsar

Hello All, I just completed LFW211 course and am planning to take the JSNAD exam next week. I am not sure what to expect in the exam. Do we have any samples questions ? Or will the questions be similar to that of exercise ?

mstepien

Hi @samaybhavsar,

Please take a look at @davidmarkclements post from December 2020: "(...) both the exam and the training are designed around pragmatic pedagogy. If you can complete the exercises in the training and you've taken the time to understand the way the pieces of that exercise can be recomposed into similar implementations with slightly different requirements then you'll be ready for the exam". For any other exam-related questions please reach out to our Customer Support Team at trainingsupport.linuxfoundation.org.

mbaltus

Just received a mailing yesterday from LF / OpenJS Foundation around their new preview testing environment. Could also be interesting to review: https://training.linuxfoundation.org/announcements/apply-here-for-the-node-js-certification-environment-preview-beta

jhortale

Guys, I have a question. I have failed as well on my first try. Does the retake follow the same tasks or new ones?

mstepien

Hi @jhortale,

For any exam-related questions please reach out to our Customer Support Team at trainingsupport.linuxfoundation.org.

Thank you,
Magda
The Linux Foundation Training Team

ialixandroae

Preparing for the exam with the new preview testing environment:

I just finished the new preview testing environment. I must say, using it from a Mac, it's quite a pain to try to use Windows/Linux key bindings from a Mac keyboard.

More than that, I found that code suggestion in VS was not working (I had to make sure the spelling of certain libraries or methods was correct) + some other small things that make me think if I'm gonna have problems in the real exam due to the environment, more than the exam itself...

kellv

This thread is humbling... I took it a while back and failed too. It made me rethink everything about this exam.

I'm up for a retake soon (days). With that, I can say I was on edge during the whole thing the first time around. I honestly thought I was in trouble when my kiddo started making lots of noise after he woke up from his nap. It's been a while since I had such restrictions imposed upon me.

Have I learned things? yes.
Do I agree with them all? no.
Do these examples work in all environments? no.

With that said, I appreciate the effort of the examples, and the support on here. It has for sure helped in guiding me.

:fingers_crossed:

jayjohnston

I found that the course training focus was heavy on CJS. The test focus was focused on ESM. I thought i knew ESM, but i realize that I practiced almost everything in CJS, and i was not prepared for the exam.

I am a VIM user, so i practiced the examples in Visual Code Studio to prepare myself. Even so, I was not prepared. PSIs "shortcut bindings" menu said to use Mac "pretzel" key but it was wrong, i had to use Cntrl for shortcuts. I spent a lot of the two hours frustrated with not being used to (not using vim and) using Cntrl key on a Mac.

Overall, i recommend considerable study outside of this course in order to be knowledgeable in things you may be unfamiliar with. This course will help you realize what you are unfamiliar with; it is necessary to go after that knowledge in depth (someplace else) before taking the exam.