Exam Insights
( - excerpted from the preface to "General Linux 1 Exam Prep" by Dee-Ann LeBlanc)

Welcome to General Linux I Exam Prep! This book aims to help you get ready to take–and pass–Exam 101, "General Linux I," which covers the common elements in various Linux distributions. This Exam Insights section discusses exam preparation resources, the testing situation, the three different certification programs in general, and how this book can help you prepare for the Linux certification exams.

Exam Prep books help you understand and appreciate the subjects and materials you need to pass certification exams. I’ve worked from the exam curriculum objectives to ensure that all key topics are clearly explained. My aim is to bring together as much information as possible about the Linux certification exams.

Nevertheless, to completely prepare for any Linux test, I recommend that you begin by taking the Self-Assessment included in this book immediately following this Exam Insights section. This tool will help you evaluate your knowledge base against the requirements for one of the Linux Level I certifications under both ideal and real circumstances.

Based on what you learn from that exercise, you might decide to begin your studies with some classroom training or some background reading. You might decide to read The Coriolis Group’s Exam Prep book that you have in hand first, or you might decide to start with another study approach. You may also want to refer to the study guides available from the organizations offering the exams.

I also strongly recommend that you install, configure, and fool around with the software that you’ll be tested on, because nothing beats hands-on experience and familiarity when it comes to understanding the questions you’re likely to encounter on a certification test. Book learning is essential, but hands-on experience is the best teacher of all!

How To Prepare For An Exam

Preparing for any Linux-related test requires that you obtain and study materials designed to provide comprehensive information about the product and its capabilities that will appear on the specific exam for which you are preparing. The following list of materials will help you study and prepare:

‰ The manuals that come with the distribution.

‰ The exam preparation materials, practice tests, and self-assessment exams on the certification Web sites (www.redhat.com, www.linuxcertification.org, and www.lpi.org). Find the materials, download them, and use them! Study the materials for all of the exams. It may just be that a description on another site helps you to understand something better than it did on the site whose exams you are aiming for.

In addition, you’ll probably find any or all of the following materials useful in your quest for Linux expertise:

‰ Study Guides Several publishers–including The Coriolis Group–offer Linux titles. The Coriolis Group series includes:

‰ The Exam Cram series These books give you information about the material you need to know to pass the tests. RHCE Linux Exam Cram is the perfect learning companion to prepare you for the Red Hat Certified Engineer Level I exam. It is also worth considering if you are going to take the LPI Red Hat specialization exam, or even just feel that you need as many preparation materials as you can find.

‰ The Exam Prep series These books provide a greater level of detail than the Exam Cram books and are designed to teach you everything you need to know from an exam perspective.

Together, the two series make a perfect pair.

‰ Multimedia These Coriolis Group materials are designed to support learners of all types–whether you learn best by listening, reading, or doing:

‰ The Practice Tests Exam Cram series Provides the most valuable test preparation material: practice exams. Each exam is followed by a complete set of answers, as well as explanations of why the right answers are right and the wrong answers are wrong. Each book comes with a CD that contains one or more interactive practice exams.

‰ The Exam Cram Flash Card series Offers practice questions on handy cards you can use anywhere. The question and its possible answers appear on the front of the card, and the answer, explanation, and a valuable reference appear on the back of the card. The set also includes a CD with an electronic practice exam to give you the feel of the actual test–and more practice!

‰ The Exam Cram Audio Review series Offers a concise review of key topics covered on the exam, as well as practice questions.

‰ Classroom Training There are many opportunities to get training in the classroom if that is your favorite venue for learning. Red Hat offers their own courses, and the other certification organizations either offer courses or point to them on their Web site.

‰ Other Publications You’ll find direct references to other publications and resources in this book, but there’s no shortage of materials available about Linux. I’ve included a complete resource section in Appendices A through F. This should give you an idea of where I think you should look for further discussion.

By far, this set of required and recommended materials represents an unparalleled collection of sources and resources for Linux and related topics. I anticipate that you’ll find that this book belongs in this company.

Taking A Certification Exam

Once you’ve prepared for your exam, you need to register with a testing center. Each Linux certification track is different, so they are discussed separately here.

Taking A Red Hat Exam

Red Hat offers a combination of courses and exams in multiple testing centers. You have the choice of taking the exam by itself for approximately $750, or as the fifth day of the RHCE week-long course for a combined cost of approximately $2,500. If you don’t pass the exam the first time through, you may retest by taking the exam portion only.

The Red Hat exams and courses are available in a number of locations. To get the latest listing of testing centers, prices, and courses, go to www.redhat.com/training. You can sign up at the last minute if there is room–because the course and exams are hands on, attendance is limited by number of machines–but the registration will not finish going through until Red Hat receives your purchase order and credit card information.

Taking An LPI Exam

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) exams are offered through VUE (Virtual University Enterprises) for $100 apiece. You can sign up for a test through the company’s Web site at www.vue.com. Or, you can register by phone at 877-619-2096 (within the United States or Canada) or at a range of numbers available through VUE’s Web site.

Taking A Sair Linux & GNU Exam

The Sair Linux & GNU exams are offered through Sylvan Prometric for $100 apiece. You can sign up for a test through the company’s Web site at www.slspro.com. Or, you can register by phone at 800-895-6717 (within the United States or Canada) or at a range of numbers available through Sair’s Web site at www.linuxcertification.org.

Signing Up With VUE Or Sylvan Prometric

To sign up for a test, you must possess a valid credit card, or contact either company for mailing instructions to send them a check (in the U.S.). Only when payment is verified, or a check has cleared, can you actually register for a test.

To schedule an exam, call the number or visit either of the Web pages at least one day in advance. To cancel or reschedule an exam, you must call before 7 p.m. pacific standard time the day before the scheduled test time (or you may be charged, even if you don’t appear to take the test). When you want to schedule a test, have the following information ready:

‰ Your name, organization, and mailing address.

‰ Your Test ID. (Inside the United States, this means your Social Security number; citizens of other nations should call ahead to find out what type of identification number is required to register for a test.)

‰ The name and number of the exam you wish to take.

‰ A method of payment. (As I’ve already mentioned, a credit card is the most convenient method, but alternate means can be arranged in advance, if necessary.)

Once you sign up for a test, you’ll be informed as to when and where the test is scheduled. Try to arrive at least 15 minutes early.

The Exam Situation

When you arrive at the testing center where you scheduled your exam, you’ll need to sign in with an exam coordinator. He or she will ask you to show two forms of identification, one of which must be a photo ID. After you’ve signed in and your time slot arrives, you’ll be asked to deposit any books, bags, or other items you brought with you. Then, you’ll be escorted into a closed room.

If you are taking the RHCE exam and this is the last day of a series of courses, you’ll find that sign-ins are not so stringent because you are already a known entity.

All exams are completely closed book. In fact, you will not be permitted to take anything with you into the testing area, but you will be furnished with a blank sheet of paper and a pen or, in some cases, an erasable plastic sheet and an erasable pen. Before the exam, you should memorize as much of the important material as you can, so you can write that information on the blank sheet as soon as you are seated in front of the computer. You can refer to this piece of paper anytime you like during the test, but you’ll have to surrender the sheet when you leave the room.

If you are taking the RHCE exam, you are also furnished with the materials necessary to complete the hands-on components of the exam, such as distribution CD-ROMs for the installation component.

You will have some time to compose yourself, to record this information, and to take a sample orientation exam before you begin the real thing if you are taking the LPI or Sair exams. I suggest you take the orientation test before taking your first exam, but because they’re all more or less identical in layout, behavior, and controls, you probably won’t need to do this more than once. If you are taking the RHCE track exam, then your proctor will explain the procedures and guidelines once everyone has settled in.

Typically, the room will be furnished with anywhere from one to half a dozen computers, and each workstation may be separated from the others by dividers designed to keep you from seeing what’s happening on someone else’s computer. Most test rooms feature a wall with a large picture window. This permits the exam coordinator to monitor the room, to prevent exam-takers from talking to one another, and to observe anything out of the ordinary that might go on. The exam coordinator will have preloaded the appropriate Linux certification exam–for this book, that’s Exam 101–and you’ll be permitted to start as soon as you’re seated in front of the computer for the Sair and LPI exams, or as soon as the proctor announces that it is time to do so.

All Linux certification exams allow a certain maximum amount of time in which to complete your work (this time is indicated on the exam by an on-screen counter/clock, or by warnings from the proctor, so you can check the time remaining whenever you like). All LPI and most Sair certification exams are computer generated and most use a multiple-choice format, and one of the RHCE exams is also multiple choice. Although this may sound quite simple, the questions are constructed not only to check your mastery of basic facts and figures about Linux system administration, but they also require you to evaluate one or more sets of circumstances or requirements. Often, you’ll be asked to give more than one answer to a question. Likewise, you might be asked to select the best or most effective solution to a problem from a range of choices, all of which technically are correct.

For the RHCE exam, you must actually complete some specific tasks as explained by your proctor. One of these tasks involves installing and configuring the distribution on a system to the proctor’s specifications, and the other involves diagnostics and troubleshooting on a system set up by the proctor. Taking any of these exams is quite an adventure; they involve real thinking. This book shows you what to expect and how to deal with the potential problems, puzzles, and predicaments.

When you complete a Linux certification exam, the software or the certification contact will tell you whether you’ve passed or failed, though in the case of the RHCE exam these results are not immediate. Results are broken into several topic areas. Even if you fail, I suggest you ask for–and keep–the detailed report that the test administrator should print for you if you took the LPI or Sair exams. You can use this report to help you prepare for another go-round, if needed.

If you need to retake an exam, you’ll have to schedule a new test and pay the fee once again.

The first time you fail a test, you can retake the test the next day. However, if you fail a second time, you must wait 14 days before retaking that test. The 14-day waiting period remains in effect for all retakes after the first failure.

In the next section, you’ll learn more about how Linux test questions look and how they must be answered.

Exam Layout And Design

Whichever type of written test you take, questions belong to one of four basic types:

‰ Multiple-choice with a single answer

‰ Multiple-choice with one or more answers

‰ Multipart with a single answer

‰ Multipart with one or more answers

Always take the time to read a question at least twice before selecting an answer. Not every question has only one answer; many questions require multiple answers. Therefore, it’s important to read each question carefully, to determine how many answers are necessary or possible, and to look for additional hints or instructions when selecting answers. Such instructions often occur in brackets immediately following the question itself (as they do for all multiple-choice questions in which one or more answers are possible).

The following multiple-choice question requires you to select a single correct answer. Following the question is a brief summary of each potential answer and why it is either right or wrong.

Question 1

Which of the following IP addresses is part of a group that is only assigned to networks that are isolated from the Internet?

m a. 196.17.13.76

m b. 192.168.101.6

m c. 210.170.15.1

m d. 70.15.141.5

The correct answer is b because any address beginning with 192.168. is slated for isolated networks to the point that TCP/IP will not try to deliver data out to the Internet when given that address. Answers a, c, and d are all viable IP addresses that can only ever belong to one machine on the Internet at a time.

This sample question format corresponds closely to the written Linux certification exam format–the only difference on the exam is that answer keys do not follow questions. To select an answer, you would position the cursor over the radio button next to the answer. Then, click the mouse button to select the answer.

Let’s examine a question where one or more answers are possible. This type of question provides checkboxes rather than radio buttons for marking all appropriate selections.

Question 2

Which of the following are commonly used email clients available to Linux users? [Choose all correct answers]

q a. pine

q b. sendmail

q c. elm

q d. eudora

Answers a and c are correct. The pine and elm email clients are two popular command line tools Linux users utilize on a daily basis. Sendmail is a mail server that is typically used under Linux, not a client. Therefore, answer b is incorrect. And, Eudora is a Windows and Macintosh based email client. Therefore, answer d is incorrect.

For this particular question, two answers are required. As far as the authors can tell (and the Linux certification committees won’t comment), such questions are scored as wrong unless all the required selections are chosen. In other words, a partially correct answer does not result in partial credit when the test is scored. For Question 2, you have to check the boxes next to items a and c to obtain credit for a correct answer. Notice that picking the right answers also means knowing why the other answers are wrong!

Linux Testing Formats

Currently, the Linux certification groups use the fixed-length testing format for the written exams. All of the LPI and Sair Level I exams are done in this multiple-choice format. One of the RHCE exams is done this way as well, but the other two are performance based, meaning that you must accomplish a particular set of end results.

The tests for Sair and the written exam for Red Hat all have approximately 50 questions apiece. LPI’s exams, on the other hand, are the new kids on the block as far as when they came out of the starting gate. Initially their exams will vary from 60 to 100 questions as the bugs get shaken out of the questions–you can still get certified taking the beta exam, you are partially judged against the performance of the other testers–and then will likely also settle down to approximately 50 questions.

Strategies For Different Testing Formats

Before you choose a test-taking strategy, you must know if your test is fixed-length or performance based. In the case of Linux certification this is simple. For Level I candidates, only RHCE testers have to face performance based exams. How you approach these different types of exams in some ways varies radically, and in some ways is quite similar.

The Fixed-Length Exam Strategy

A well-known principle when taking fixed-length exams is to first read over the entire exam from start to finish while answering only those questions you feel absolutely sure of. On subsequent passes, you can dive into more complex questions more deeply, knowing how many such questions you have left.

Fortunately, the exam software for fixed-length tests makes the multiple-visit approach easy to implement. Each certification track has slightly different software, but they all allow you to move backward and forward through the questions until you are satisfied with the results.

As you read each question, if you answer only those you’re sure of and mark for review those that you’re not sure of, you can keep working through a decreasing list of questions as you answer the trickier ones in order.

There’s at least one potential benefit to reading the exam over completely before answering the trickier questions: Sometimes, information supplied in later questions sheds more light on earlier questions. At other times, information you read in later questions might jog your memory about Linux facts, figures, or behavior that helps you answer earlier questions. Either way, you’ll come out ahead if you defer those questions about which you’re not absolutely sure.

Here are some question-handling strategies that apply to fixed-length tests. Use them if you have the chance:

‰ When returning to a question after your initial read-through, read every word again–otherwise, your mind can fall quickly into a rut. Sometimes, revisiting a question after turning your attention elsewhere lets you see something you missed, but the strong tendency is to see what you’ve seen before. Try to avoid that tendency at all costs.

‰ If you return to a question more than twice, try to articulate to yourself what you don’t understand about the question, why answers don’t appear to make sense, or what appears to be missing. If you chew on the subject awhile, your subconscious might provide the details you lack, or you might notice a "trick" that points to the right answer.

For fixed-length tests, it’s wise to budget your time by making sure that you’ve completed one-quarter of the questions one-quarter of the way through the exam period. For 50 question tests this means you must complete one-quarter of the questions one-quarter of the way through (the first 12 or 13 questions) and three-quarters of the questions three-quarters of the way through (37 or 38 questions).

If you’re not finished when only five minutes remain, use that time to guess your way through any remaining questions. Remember, guessing is potentially more valuable than not answering, because blank answers are always wrong, but a guess may turn out to be right. If you don’t have a clue about any of the remaining questions, pick answers at random, or choose all a’s, b’s, and so on. The important thing is to submit an exam for scoring that has an answer for every question.

At the very end of your exam period, you’re better off guessing than leaving questions unanswered.

The Performance-Based Exam Strategy

Taking a performance-based exam is slightly different, but similar. Though there may not be a set number of questions to answer, you will have a list of objectives. If it helps you to budget your time properly, take a moment to number them. It also may happen that you do not have a set number of tasks per se, but you do have a final objective to meet. In this case, take the time to get a grasp on what obstacles stand in the way of you meeting this objective.

Once you have a good feeling for how much you have to do, you can budget your time accordingly. Do not get so focused on one task that you neglect all of the others to complete it. In fact, you may find that putting aside a task that is giving you trouble and returning to it later means that you either now realize how to deal with the issue, or completing a different objective makes this other one easier to accomplish.

Also keep in mind that if things seem far too difficult, you may be over-analyzing the problem. Take a step back and start over. Unfortunately, when you get down to the last five minutes of the exam you cannot just guess your way through the rest of the answers. However, make sure to remember what the proctor told you at the beginning about the rules for the examination. You may have access to anything on the system, including man pages!

Question-Handling Strategies

Based on exams I have taken, some interesting trends have become apparent. For those questions that take only a single answer, usually two or three of the answers will be obviously incorrect, and two of the answers will be plausible–of course, only one can be correct. Unless the answer leaps out at you (if it does, reread the question to look for a trick; sometimes those are the ones you’re most likely to get wrong), begin the process of answering by eliminating those answers that are most obviously wrong.

Almost always, at least one answer out of the possible choices for a question can be eliminated immediately because it matches one of these conditions:

‰ The answer does not apply to the situation.

‰ The answer describes a nonexistent issue, an invalid option, or an imaginary state.

After you eliminate all answers that are obviously wrong, you can apply your retained knowledge to eliminate further answers. Look for items that sound correct but refer to actions, commands, or features that are not present or not available in the situation that the question describes.

If you’re still faced with a blind guess among two or more potentially correct answers, reread the question. Try to picture how each of the possible remaining answers would alter the situation. Be especially sensitive to terminology; sometimes the choice of words ("remove" instead of "disable") can make the difference between a right answer and a wrong one.

Only when you’ve exhausted your ability to eliminate answers, but remain unclear about which of the remaining possibilities is correct, should you guess at an answer. An unanswered question offers you no points, but guessing gives you at least some chance of getting a question right; just don’t be too hasty when making a blind guess.

If you’re taking a fixed-length test, you can wait until the last round of reviewing marked questions (just as you’re about to run out of time, or out of unanswered questions) before you start making guesses. Guessing should be your technique of last resort!

Numerous questions assume that the default behavior of a particular utility is in effect. If you know the defaults and understand what they mean, this knowledge will help you cut through many Gordian knots.

Mastering The Inner Game

In the final analysis, knowledge breeds confidence, and confidence breeds success. If you study the materials in this book carefully and review all the practice questions at the end of each chapter, you should become aware of those areas where additional learning and study are required.

After you’ve worked your way through the book, take the practice exam in the back of the book and the practice exams on the CD-ROM. This will provide a reality check and help you identify areas to study further. Make sure you follow up and review materials related to the questions you miss on the practice exams before scheduling a real exam. Only when you’ve covered that ground and feel comfortable with the whole scope of the practice exams should you set an exam appointment. Only if you score 85 percent or better should you proceed to the real thing (otherwise, obtain some additional practice tests so you can keep trying until you hit this magic number).

If you take a practice exam and don’t score at least 85 percent correct, you’ll want to practice further. Sair provides a free practice exam for each of their four Level I exams on their Web site that you can start with. You also should spend extra time troubleshooting problems where before you might give up and take the easy way out.

Armed with the information in this book and with the determination to augment your knowledge, you should be able to pass the certification exam. However, you need to work at it, or you’ll spend the exam fee more than once before you finally pass. If you prepare seriously, you should do well. Good luck!

.........

Tracking Linux Certification Status

Each of the different Linux certification organizations will handle post-certification issues differently. In general, these solutions will include hardcopy affirmation that you did indeed pass the exam, as well as a way for potential employers and clients to verify this information. For example, once you pass Red Hat’s RHCE you receive the following a certificate, suitable for framing, along with a serial number which you or others can use to verify your information on Red Hat’s Web site. This information includes whether the certification is up to date as of that time.

This document is excerpted from the preface to "General Linux 1 Exam Prep (with CD-ROM)" by Dee-Ann LeBlanc. (c) copyright: The Coriolis Group, 2000