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Home > Archive > Server + > October 2002 > Qualifiers & Distractors
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Qualifiers & Distractors
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| cheneybros 2002-10-06, 4:10 pm |
| Well, I have been a victim of failing the Server+ twice now....& now awaiting that 30 day period CompTIA requires...Perhaps someone who takes tests very well could explain on how to point out these types of test questions/answers (I am a terrible test taker)...I emailed CompTIA begging on what else I could do to help improve my chances of passing...she basically said that the Server+ consists of these type of questions...I am not a english/grammer guru at all, & I need some insight on how to get thru these exams a little easier...any input is greatly appreciated... | |
| azimuth40 2002-10-06, 5:10 pm |
| I am sorry to hear that 
You do not need grammar so much as spotting key words. Many people skim sentences looking for the general content only. To be good at these type of tests get the content and then re-read for the key words only.
A distractor is simply an irrelevant fact or statement. Microsoft exams have lots more or these that ComptTIA however they tend to be full statements in the Microsoft case.
Qualifiers are facts or statements that place an answer in the possibly correct category or eliminate it as a possible answer. A fact (key word or statement) can be a qualifier or a distractor based on the list of answers. Typically if given four possible answers, two will be immediately wrong based on the qualifier/distractor information in the question.
Why write questions this way? It is the way that information will be presented to you when you are trying to solve a real problem. You may get all sorts of useless information that you must eliminate.
Secondly you must be good at deciding if a possible answer could never be true.
Thirdly you must decide what would be the "best practice" for solving the problem. For example, the movie version of going in with guns blazing or call for backup. Some of the good guys, while they thought they were doing the right thing and might have if they suceeded often end up in trouble or dead.
Best practices are the tie breaker between two answers that could both be right under slightly different circumstances. Best practices are all over the troubleshooting and installation questions.
"Best practices" - buzzword statement in any profession for the generally accepted way to do something. It may not be the "fastest way" or "your way" but it is the "approved way".
If we were talking about MCSE or CCNA then it would be the "Microsoft way" or the "Cisco way". I did not call this the "CompTIA way" because that is not one company but over 8,000 companies.  | |
| namrak 2002-10-07, 8:41 pm |
| Sorry to hear your bad news cheneybros.
You didn't mention if you scored better the second time around or worse, though you may not think it matters as a fail is a fail. Just trying to come up with something positive to reflect on. Maybe switch gears and aim for a different cert to think about something else for a little while? | |
| Supertech 2002-10-07, 9:44 pm |
| Although wrong answers seem like they should be easy to identify, it can be challenging to find three good wrong answers, i.e. incorrect responses that will be attractive to unprepared candidates.
* When you are structuring your wrong answers, you should make all response options within an item mutually exclusive; in other words, the content of the response options should not overlap.
* The other options should be plausible, but incorrect. A good wrong answer is one that is plausible to examinees that are insufficiently prepared. Think about the kind of mistakes these examinees might make on the job. Common misconceptions and errors, unacceptable methods or procedures, and poor techniques often make good incorrect responses.
* There should be grammatical consistency between the stem and all of the response options. All of the response options, the key and three distracters, should loggically follow the stem.
Although wrong answers seem like they should be easy to identify, it can be challenging to find three good wrong answers. A good wrong answer is one that is "plausible to a candidate who is insufficiently prepared".
* use common misconceptions and true statements that are only peripherally related to the questions being asked.
* use statements that are only peripherally related to the question being asked.
I hope this helps. | |
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| cheneybros 2002-10-08, 12:08 pm |
| Thanks for all of your input...all your ideas have opened my brain a little bit...8^)
Perhaps, I was not as prepared as I should have been...But I have came this far with my investment, I should go ahead & continue my quest...this next test is Nov 8th, I will keep you posted...
Namrak:
The first Server+ exam, I made a 60%...The second I made a 68%...a little better, but I still was fooled again by these funky questions...
Clintax:
I have about 3 yrs of hands on IT experience with Desktop support...I am trying to squeeze my way into the server room eventually that is why I have chosen the Server+ route...I have taken a MS Server 2000 class at a local 2yr college & did very well in the class...I also have installed Server2K SBE on a side consulting job...so my server exp is limited, but trying my best to bust into it... | |
| clintax 2002-10-08, 3:20 pm |
| Good LucK!!!  |
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