[lpi-discuss] Is www.lpiforums.com "the official Linux Professional Institute forums"?

[Dimitrios Bogiatzoules, Product Developer]

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Hi Alan,

Alan McKinnon said the following on 15.03.2006 15:36:
[...]
>> LPI is strong and independent, unaffected by what happens with this
>> site.  Besides, this sort of thing happens with every
>> certification, as soon as people think they can just memorize
>> questions and answers to get a coveted and difficult exam, then
>> someone will try to make money or gain from that situation.
> 
> Which is easily fixed by having a large item pool and rotating the 
> exams often, like monthly.
[...]

I do not want to start a new discussion on this ancient topic about item
pools but I'll have to agree with Evan regarding the two words "easily"
and "monthly"...

Our certification is based on *very* detailed and stable for at least a
few years, objectives. This makes it rather hard to write tons of items
and rotate 12 times a year. We do our best to rotate as often as
possible but there are real limits here (btw: you forgot to add the
costs for publishing the exams to your scenario).

Just to give you an example on what I meant above: how many *real*
different items (not variations but always a new scenario for the
knowledge to test) can you write if you where to ask a candidate how to
copy a file from directory A to directory B using /bin/cp? In your
calculation you would need at least 12 totally different items per year,
but I can't see more than one which would be a "fill in the blank"
asking for "cp" since I can't imagine 4 foils for a 5 answer "single
choice" item.

Of course this is an extreme example and given that I've written,
reviewed and chosen items for forms I'm aware that there is a range of
objectives that can deliver 12 and more good items. The problem hereby
is that those objectives are weighted higher than the others and
therefore need more items on one form....

I would be glad if somebody has an idea how to get a lot of different
and valid items written.

<modus humour=on>
This reminds me that someone proposed in the past that the same person
who could find the solution for that, should also try him/herself in
world peace. The chances to succeed would be good enough ;-)
<modus humour=off>

Being serious again, I'd really love to see a realistic strategy to
enlarge the pool with good items!

Best regards,

Taki
- --
Dimitrios Bogiatzoules            Product Developer
LPIC-2                 Linux Professional Institute
GnuPG Key ID  A7E4D183           http://www.lpi.org
taki at lpi.org               http://www.lpi-german.de
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