Taking the Apple Desktop cert. exam tomorrow...

[delhux]

I was wondering if anyone else here has taken it recently and if they could offer any last-minute advice on what to review before the test. I'm feeling pretty confident about the test, but I'd like to know if any questions caught you off guard.

Any response would be great!

Thanks,
-Dave

[Veldek]

Although I know nothing that may help you, I just wanted to wish you good luck!

[delhux]

Thank you very much, I appreciate it!

[pseudobrit]

Hey, even if no one responds with any help, you can still be the first -- come back in and tell everyone what to be prepared for.

I'm sure there's plenty of future hopeful Apple repair techs in here, myself included (the new job I start next week will be pushing me much closer to that goal; I'll at least be HP certified in a few months for sure).

Oh, yes, and good luck!
Though I'm sure you won't need it -- you're obviously pretty dedicated if you came into a Mac forum to try to dig up extra study material! :D

[delhux]

Heh, I was really just trying to get a little "inside track" information from people who may have taken the test recently. I suppose that makes me more of a weasel, perhaps a dedicated one. Oh well, I'll know how I did tomorrow;) .

[Mblazened]

i took the test fairly recently.

I think i took the desktop exam first, which i thought was the hardest. The questions that you must watch out for are the CRT saftey ones.

Just remember: according to apple CRT's can be dangerious to handle because of (1) danger of implosion, and (2) hazardous materials inside, but NOT because of radioactivity. I got that one wrong a few times.

Miss more than 4 CRT questions and you fail. So just study those. If you retake the test, they give you the same questions so you will do better the second time.

I took my first test 3 times so study hard!

[patrick0brien]

-delhux, all

How does one get lined up to take certification exams?

Does one have to enroll in a course?

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by Mblazened
Just remember: according to apple CRT's can be dangerious to handle because of (1) danger of implosion, and (2) hazardous materials inside, but NOT because of radioactivity. I got that one wrong a few times. that would be scary if your CRT emitted beta particles or something through the glass. ha! yeah i can't imagine getting that particular one wrong, myself. what mistake did you make?

[scem0]

Originally posted by patrick0brien
-delhux, all

How does one get lined up to take certification exams?

Does one have to enroll in a course?

I was wondering the same thing....

I am a Junior in highschool right now, and I would LOVE to be employed by apple. What would be the best route to take to achieve my goal?

Good luck with the test. :)

scem0

[pseudobrit]

Originally posted by patrick0brien
-delhux, all

How does one get lined up to take certification exams?

Does one have to enroll in a course?

You buy Apple's training course online; it's $299.

http://www.apple.com/support/products/techtrain.html

then you take the test(s), which is $299 (each: one desktop; one portable) and administered by Prometric.

[pseudobrit]

Originally posted by scem0
I was wondering the same thing....

I am a Junior in highschool right now, and I would LOVE to be employed by apple. What would be the best route to take to achieve my goal?

Study hard. Get good grades. Wash, rinse, repeat through high school. Go to a good college and get a degree in a pertinent tech field.

Learn UNIX. Learn to code. Learn Cocoa. Intern in the tech field. Apply at Apple.

[delhux]

Originally posted by Mblazened
i took the test fairly recently.

Miss more than 4 CRT questions and you fail. So just study those. If you retake the test, they give you the same questions so you will do better the second time.

I took my first test 3 times so study hard!

So did you have to retake the test because of the CRT safety requirement questions or did you just not score high enough on the rest?

[scem0]

Originally posted by pseudobrit
Study hard. Get good grades. Wash, rinse, repeat through high school. Go to a good college and get a degree in a pertinent tech field.

Learn UNIX. Learn to code. Learn Cocoa. Intern in the tech field. Apply at Apple.

Sounds good - all except the get good grades part.

Well, I can get good grades in college, just not in HS.

scem0

[patrick0brien]

Originally posted by scem0
Well, I can get good grades in college, just not in HS.

-scem0

Getting good grades in college should be a little more difficult, if you party effectively enough.

Yes, that was encouragement to be evil in college ;)

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by scem0
Sounds good - all except the get good grades part.

Well, I can get good grades in college, just not in HS.

scem0 you'll need to perform reasonably well in high school to get into a good college to get good grades in college, though. don't think you can put off performing well in school that easily :p

[BaghdadBob]

$299 for the course and the test? Does this job come with concubines?

Seriously...you could be a fully trained and certified C21 Real Estate agent for less, whatever job you can get with the cert better be good for that kind of dough.

As far as HS grades go...I once got under a 1.0 for a semester, and I peaked at a 3.0. How sad. That's what happens when you let all the stupid drama interfere with your ability to perform. Every stupid job I have to take where I don't get respect, stability, or a decent paycheck is a reminder of how much easier it would have been to apply myself, get a scholarship, and be working in the tech industry where there was a time it would have been arguable I belonged (back when I was the shiznit as a teen nerd). Now I'm crossing my fingers I can get a job with the Sherrif's dept in corrections @ $2400/mo. base salary, a career I always said I didn't want to get into.......

But I digress.

[Mblazened]

I had to take the test three times because i got more than four of the CRT safety questions wrong. These are not easy questions, you have to select more than one answer for many of them, and they don't tell you what the right answer was if you got it wrong! So i took it three times.

the tests ask questions with weird wording, like:

which is the most likely cause of a flashing question mark at startup?

1. Virus
2. Disk failure
3. Software corruption
4. No startup disk selected.

The answer is 4. All are true, but 4 is most likely true.


Or they ask you,

"which of the following components are dangerous to touch while performing live adjustments on the imac?"

1. PAV board
2. Logic board
3. CRT neck
4. Down converter

I don't remember exactly what the answer was, but i think all of these should not be touched while the machine is on, so you mark all four.

I started studying for my test last year, when i started training at a service center. I didn't need to take the test until a few months ago. If you work at a service center, you have free access to the Apple Training courses that you otherwise have to pay $299 for. I think all you get with that package anyway is a TechId which lets you access apple's online training stuff. I don't think any manuals or software come with it.

-m

[scem0]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
you'll need to perform reasonably well in high school to get into a good college to get good grades in college, though. don't think you can put off performing well in school that easily :p

Well my goal is to get into regulars (which my mom doesn't agree to :o) which I know I can get a 4.0 GPA easily, which will put me into the top 10%, which will put me into UT.

UT is my ideal school I think.

scem0

[wdlove]

I wish you all the best on your exam tomorrow. The best advice now would be to get a good nights sleep. If you don't know it now, craming would only make you nervous.

I'm sure that all your dreams will be realized scem0!

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by scem0
Well my goal is to get into regulars (which my mom doesn't agree to :o) which I know I can get a 4.0 GPA easily, which will put me into the top 10%, which will put me into UT.

UT is my ideal school I think.

scem0 at westwood, you had to take AP to get into the top 10%. they did a 6.0 scale. 5.0 would be the highest you could get if you aced all your classes and they were all regular. you needed about a 5.1 GPA to be top 10%. i barely made it, hah. i don't see you making top 10% on all regular classes. but you'll see, eh? you can still get into UT though, of course. though, not challenging yourself won't look good :p

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by delhux
I was wondering if anyone else here has taken it recently and if they could offer any last-minute advice on what to review before the test. I'm feeling pretty confident about the test, but I'd like to know if any questions caught you off guard.

Any response would be great!

Thanks,
-Dave

i am sure you will pass with flying colors...congrats for taking the time and commitment to become a certified technician

i am certified on the pc end of things but my heart is really on the mac side, but i live in a mostly rural area where there are very few macs so it's hard to make a living exclusively on the mac end

since actual certified techs in any computer related fields are still relatively rare compared to the large number of working techs in the field, i think apple should offer the training kit at a much more affordable price than three hundred dollars

the more apple certified techs there are out there, the more peace of mind mac users can have that there is someone out there apple inc says is qualified to fix their computers

[rice_web]

Moving into my senior year of classes of high school, I've got nearly a dead-even 3.0 GPA on an un-weighted scale, though I'm in most of the advanced classes (adjusted for the AP courses I'd be at roughly a 3.4 or so). I'm really quite a slacker. ;)

But even though I do less than stellar amounts of homework, I've always tested well, and I work countless hours on the side. In the 3rd grade it was QBasic, later HTML, then JavaScript, then C++, then PHP, then Java. So not only am I studying three foreign languages, I'm studying and know at least six programming languages (I might've forgotten something older/less important). I also read as many of the ArsTechnica PDFs as I can print, and am absolutely amazed by the microprocessor.

Yet, computer science, computer repair, engineering, or anything I apply math or computer skills is not something I'm going into.

Business management.

Eh, it's generic enough to survive a recession, at least. I can always jump on the tech bandwagon again if I want to.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by rice_web
Moving into my senior year of classes of high school, I've got nearly a dead-even 3.0 GPA on an un-weighted scale, though I'm in most of the advanced classes (adjusted for the AP courses I'd be at roughly a 3.4 or so). I'm really quite a slacker. ;)

But even though I do less than stellar amounts of homework, I've always tested well, and I work countless hours on the side. In the 3rd grade it was QBasic, later HTML, then JavaScript, then C++, then PHP, then Java. So not only am I studying three foreign languages, I'm studying and know at least six programming languages (I might've forgotten something older/less important). I also read as many of the ArsTechnica PDFs as I can print, and am absolutely amazed by the microprocessor.

Yet, computer science, computer repair, engineering, or anything I apply math or computer skills is not something I'm going into.

Business management.

Eh, it's generic enough to survive a recession, at least. I can always jump on the tech bandwagon again if I want to.

and the recession we are in is even more so in tech

at the college where i attend to brush up on certain skills every year, very few students want to study anything that is remotely connected to computers

being just an hour away from silicon valley, many know how badly almost all high tech got hit when the bottom fell out of the dot.com thing

just a few years earlier, everyone wanted to be in some computer related field..especially web design

studying a business subject is far safer in this bleak economic time...i decided to finish college back in the early 90s when things were also bad with the economy so i looked to business as opposed to something that might not be as sure a thing

you are smart to stay with business, because in high tech the highest paying jobs are still the sales jobs because that's what brings the money in...my brother in law only has a high school education but makes 200k a year in high tech sales because while coding or manufacturing in computers goes up and down, people still will buy and sell high tech equipment...even in a recession because while companies may not be able to afford to always buy their gear, they can rent it and sales agents make even more money

and it's not just high tech where being a salesperson is great...so you are smart choosing business

[scem0]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
at westwood, you had to take AP to get into the top 10%. they did a 6.0 scale. 5.0 would be the highest you could get if you aced all your classes and they were all regular. you needed about a 5.1 GPA to be top 10%. i barely made it, hah. i don't see you making top 10% on all regular classes. but you'll see, eh? you can still get into UT though, of course. though, not challenging yourself won't look good :p

Anderson runs on a 5.0 grade scale... I have about a 3.1 in honors, doing only a fraction of the homework. In regulars I can finish the homework in the class, ace the test (I have always been a good test taker), and get a ~3.6 in the class. Combine that with a 4.5 from a honors/ap computer class or two and I am around a 4.0 GPA. Very few people at anderson have above a 4.2 or 3, so I am 99% sure I'll be in the top 10%.

My mom isn't taking to the whole taking regulars thing though. I want her to see that it will be better for my education in the long run.

scem0

[jefhatfield]

in the dark ages, before there was extra gpa credit for harder classes, some students took easier classes and got the better gpa

and the highest possible gpa was a 4.0

and at the time 3.0 was usually good enough for the uc system and even some private universities

[delhux]

Well, if anyone's interested, I passed!

Man, I was ecstatic when I found out I passed (easily, I might add).

Ok, I'm stoked, time for the software exam next.

WOO HOO!!!

[jefhatfield]

congrats:D

[BaghdadBob]

Good job! I think I aced the corrections exam....one would think...but anyway...

When you are done send me one of your concubines.

[wdlove]

Congratulations delhux, I had no doubt about your success!
;)