准备考试，你属于哪一组?

参加认证考试只是作为微软技术讲师乐趣的一部分，但这并不意味着它已经成为一个令人愉快的过程。作为一名教师和导师，我接触了一些准备参加考试的学生;这些学生中有些人会努力学习一两个星期，而另一些人则会学习同样的材料一个月左右。我想知道准备考试的“最佳”时间是什么。有没有什么神奇的公式可以用来决定一个人何时准备开始学习，或者反过来，同样的公式可以告诉一个人什么时候需要更多的学习时间?我不能告诉你任何神圣的顿悟会告诉你什么时候你准备好了，但我可以告诉你一些我多年来的观察。首先让我来描述一个在考试前花了很多时间的人。有些学生(也包括老师)为了某个特定的考试会不停地学习;他们想要知道他们认证的产品的每一个细节。现在我并不是说这是一件特别糟糕的事情，但我从未见过一个测试会问，“当‘Enter’按钮被按下时，产生了多少毫安?”“即使是在最激烈的A+考试中，你也不会得到这样的成绩。 What generally happens with people that try to absorb everything is that their brains get full of all of the trivial stuff and they lose sight of how the big picture is supposed to work. They tend to second guess themselves a lot when they are taking the exam because they actually know too much. The next group of studiers that I have run across are those the study a little here, take a break for a week or two, do a little more studying, take a break and so on. I am fully aware that studying is absolutely no fun, but like learning a new language, I think that you have to stay at it so that the concepts start to sink in. I think that this is most prevalent in programming (talk about learning a new language). I see students come into the intro to programming class and learn the basics of a language pretty well. Then they don’t come back for the second class for about a month or two and in the mean time, they don’t get a chance to practice what they already have learned. Not a good recipe for the retention of knowledge. The same sort of idea also applies to taking an exam; if you are not immersed in the technology on a day to day basis then it is very easy to forget what you have already learned. The final group of test takers contains those who have the luxury of being able to devote a few days to doing nothing but studying for the exam. Most of the people that fall into this group are those that have taken a few testes before and know just what they need to pass an exam. Many times the people in this group will use some kind of practice test as their main form of study. They are looking for the concepts that the practice test vendor thinks is important for them to know and hammers them on the practice test. I have seen people from all of these groups do both well and poorly on the actual exam, but for the most part, those that study hard for a few days and then immediately take the exam tend to do the best and get passing scores. However you approach your studying just remember; when you sit down at the exam computer, take a deep breath and just relax…exams can sense fear.