The Fix Is (Not) In

Here in the United States there's about to be a presidential election. No, really, it's true. Those of us who live here can't stop hearing about it, sometimes even when all we want to do is peruse someone's ruminations about this or that facet of IT certification. One of the biggest news headlines at the moment is the persistent clamor from fully half of the candidates with a realistic shot at winning that the election is rigged.

Is there any truth to this potentially explosive claim? In a word: No. According to a recent bulletin from the Bureau of Common Sense and Simple Answers, not only is the claim about rigged elections patently false, but there's a greater chance of Santa Claus swearing in the next president than there is of that same next president's being elected due to massive voter fraud. I mean, let's think about this logically: Santa would have to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to swear in the next president, and the Senate hasn't even refused to hold confirmation hearings on his nomination yet.

Here's something else that's not rigged: Any of TestOut's Pro certification exams. It's actually the other way around. TestOut's exams are specifically designed to favor IT professionals who truly know what they're doing. That's because TestOut exams are 100 percent performance-based. You can't just guess whether A, B, or C is the correct answer. You have to actually address real-word IT challenges by applying what you've learned from TestOut's top-flight courseware.

As noted last week in this space, performance-based exams require that test takers make on-the-spot assessments and apply real-word solutions. Guessing isn't really even an option. You could maybe spend a lot of time taking a trial-and-error approach to each question and notch a few correct answers. But you're not going to get through an entire exam that way. You can't fake it until you make it, or really even fake it at all.

Now, someone with no actual IT skills might sit down to take a performance-based exam and feel like it was, to use the word of the moment, "rigged." I don't even have a shot at this thing, such a person might think. I can't even guess the answers. Employers, on the other hand, are far more likely to value a prospective employees whose skills have been verified by a performance-based exam. And, of course, a certification candidate who actually understands IT concepts is perfectly capable of succeeding on a performance-based exam.

So don't worry about rigged elections, and don't worry about rigged certification exams. Performance-based exams are good for certification, and good for you.