What was your experience with JSNAD?

ialixandroae

Hello everybody,

For those who have taken the exam, I'd like to ask you how was you experience and what recommendations you have?

I just finished the LFW211 course, but I feel like going through it is not enough for the exam, so right now I'm re-reading the course materials for each chapter/module and I'm creating small exercises where I'm testing and exploring it.

I'd also like to mention that I had the chance to participate in the new preview testing environment, and it was a huge challenge! I was using CenOS and those key bindings from a Mac, so the keyboard experience was a mess, and I also had issues with the VM size/resolution inside the browser and with code completion inside VS Code which simply did not work.

My problem is that I can't really quantify or estimate if I'm ready or not, especially reading some impressions and discussions here on the forum where most said they failed their 1st try...

Apart from the main question, I'd also like to ask:

• At what point did you know you were ready for the exam - from a technical point of view?
• Apart from the course offered by OpenJS , did you use other study materials?
• Were those 2 hours enough for you?
• Did you manage to finish all the exercises?
• What is the difficulty of the exercises?
• And I'm also curious if ALL libraries from NodeJS are requested for the exam or only what is in the curriculum? (for example, http, net, cluster, worker threads, zlib libraries don't appear as needed for the exam...)

Thanks so much!

davidmarkclements

hey @ialixandroae I'm the author of the material and the examinations

Bullets answered in order

• that's a very difficult thing to know. Remember though, there's a free retake, so if you're not as ready as you thought and you don't pass then you'll have a better idea of any additional prep before the retake
• My one recommendation would be familiarise yourself with the Node.js docs
• It's a tight two hours, be sure not to get too lost in a question because that can hurt you
• From analysis, some people do, some don't
• Ranging from easy to hard, with the majority at medium level. Still difficult to quantify, but we're talking on a scale of "upper intermediate ability"
• The curriculum topics map 1:1 with the exam.

alebefo502

@ialixandroae I feel a bit the same way, but it is good to know that the curriculum maps 1:1 the exam @davidmarkclements.

Since we had a free retake I decided as soon as I finished the course to take the exam straight away, back in March I believe if not earlier, so that even if I would have failed it at least then I knew what it was about and I can confirm you what @davidmarkclements hinted at. I did not manage to complete all the exercise but I was under prepared in hindsight and I did not pass, but I did not do terribly bad either. Do not take it likely. It is not difficult as long as complexity goes and you can read the Node.js doc and any lib doc at any moment but that is a double edge sword that ultimately snared me.

The exam is made to factor speed into it, like you were on a deadline, and if you do like I did defaulting on reading the docs at each question and overcode checks into every exercise you won't be able to complete it in time (like I did). You need to expand what you learned here on the docs in a way that you can make most exercises without looking at the docs. It does not mean you have to memorize the entire documentation but at least be confident to use Node,js without it 80% of the time. Learn the quirks of the fs and path modules, learn how to handle async code in any way possible, how to manage streams and pipelines at best and how to work with other processes. I believe these are the most important topics.

@davidmarkclements if you can suggest some places where to exercise I am more than happy to hear, but I believe the best way to prepare is to build applications yourself that require those topics to be understood well and study the docs.

sanchil

A very important question for all and with some interesting insights.

davidmarkclements

@albefo502 yes the exam takes a very practical approach, so the more you practice the more likely you are to pass. Programming is hard, programming at a level where your risk to a business is low enough to justify your cost is very hard indeed and the certification is intended to show that you meet this criteria. The course provides the knowledge with some pragmatic exercises, but paradigm adoption and mental versatility only come from rigorous application. Another suggestion is find OSS projects to contribute to, or even create.

gregsheppard

I just took the exam and can confirm that the material in the course maps quite well to the material on the exam.

The environment was disorienting at first, especially the key bindings and not having my editor plugins. However, you can npm install modules and refer to their documentation so if there is a npm cli version of the plugin just add it as a package.json script.

Also, keep the node docs open as you go through the course so when you need to look something up during the exam you can quickly find it. During your studies though, slow down and try to recall what you can before looking it up so you'll remember it better.

davidmarkclements

@gregsheppard thanks for the feedback, and solid advice

gregsheppard

Thanks @davidmarkclements. I'm looking forward to learning 'How to Build P2P Applications for Fun and Profit' next week!

dtravailloux

Hello. I have just did the exam. I would like to share with you some things and experience because it was my first time on certification. I was ill since few months and I needed to get exam before the end of the 1 year period to do it.

First, on identity check, you can have some surprises at the last time and it's stressing. Some examples :

• you forget to drop paper on water bottle. You have a headphone in bluetooth, you must to not use headphones, ask showing you ears, drop the watch.... The proctor ask you to drop it and when you shutdown blue tooth, you are eject from exam...so you restart the id process, video of the room, photo on passport, you lose time on your exam...proctor ask you to close your laptop screen and your pc close...so you need to change settings on laptop screen closing...be 30min here before the time planned !!! I was and I got a lof of surpises

On exam, take care...some shortcuts don't work like on your pc. you don't have autocompletion on functions or your usual extensions very useful...the screen of the vm is small...do a lot of pre-checks in the same situation when you planned your exam (I had suprise, I was quiet in my job and admins limited the bandwitch for stream...check failed...45 min before exam, I take my car go to the house...stressing)

You need to know code, if you need to check documentation, you waste a lot of time in documentation and you have a lot to do...I can't finish and test all I would like. It's not like your job where you can search some implentation examples, you code from scratch. 2 hours go really fast...amazing

More funny, don't drink too much water or it's painful...to reach the end of the exam

My friends said to me they did certifications only by answer checboxes...here you need to code.

Good luck everyone

ps : I hope you have a good english level because some questions are difficult to understand (especially for me, I am a french native and my english is terrible).

davidmarkclements

hahah @gregsheppard - hope you enjoyed it