Hello,
I am in total agreement with the prior reply. I have been developing in Informatica since 1996 and have been an administrator of the software since 1997. I tried one of these tests last year and was amazed at the level of symantics and verbage that the test I took got in to.
The test I took was testing detailed knowledge in areas that are not used in the real world (as far as I have seen) and the answers they list to select from are so similar that it would be very easy to slip up.
In my opinion there are also too many questions for the time allocation for a web based test. The test I took had 67 questions to answer in 60 minutes. This might be acceptable for a booklet/paper test, but for a web based the time was not adequate.
The study quide was not a very useful at all as a tool. It pretty much tells you to know every area, and does not give any good examples of what they are looking for. When you do this, it needs to be in a very in depth manner and you need to also have a good understanding of adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, etc. (verbage) as many questions may have 3 valid answers depending upon your interpretion of what the answer is stating. I would guess that either a docemention writer or a lawyer wrote the test.
I found the test to be slanted very much towards a couple paths, which was done in an extreme detail. If this is an area that you may not know well, its not part of your job, or it is not used at your shop (because it may not work well) ... you have just missed several questions ... the term 'beating a dead horse' is very relevant here. Some of the questions even wanted to know the actual names of sub-displays or selection buttons within the various tools (e.g. nodes under folder structures). I understand the need of knowing how to navigate the tools, but honestly to know the field level names that Informatica has developed as oposed to the field value is a little extreme. This would be like giving a driving test and asking the person to name each subcomponent that makes up a spark plug in order to pass.
Bottom line, if you pass any of these tests it may not necessarily mean that you know the product area as well as you can understand the language it is written in or the specific areas that they choose to test. As well as if you do not pass, it may just mean that you had an average internet connection or that you may actually know the information better than the Informatica test writer.
Just my feedback and opinion.
Mike
