Attempting the new path to BIG-IP Certified Administrator

A couple weeks ago I had kjsalchow on for an episode of DevCentral Connects, which you can watch at your pleasure here:

I had reached out to Ken and HeidiSchreifels after one our MVPs made a comment on this new path toward certification. I missed the memo (Heidi's article here), but this was big news and I knew we needed to have a conversation with the community. During our chat, Ken mentioned that all five beta tests required to earn your BIG-IP Certified Administrator would be available on-site at AppWorld (as would the recertification test available to ANYONE who has previously held the cert) and that he needed more people to start at #5 and work backwards. And so I did. I had time Tuesday morning before "The Hub" opening party kicked things off, so I knocked out all five beta tests. Here are my thoughts about the experience.

1. I went in completely blind. I did not study, (but the blueprint is here for you) and I did not do the prep work to get my device ready for testing. I did pre-register for tests #3 - #5.
2. When I arrived at the room, the cert team did a great job helping me get the tools set up on my laptop. The test environment downloads a secure browsing session, and there are some known issues with company laptops that lock things down, so you might be best suited to test from a personal laptop. To my knowledge in discussions with them, tablets are not supported.
3. The certiverse delivery was great. Strong improvement from what I recall for the previous versions. Seeing the questions and the diagrams and being able to reference back and forth was far easier to assess the challenges. I always try to use the flagging system for review and that worked great. As this was a beta, I took extra time to provide feedback.
4. For the betas, I had a range of questions from I think 39 to 58 across the five tests and an hour to complete each. For production tests, I believe that will be 30/30.  None of them concerned me on time.
5. I really liked the breakdown in the new format. This allows you to progress through the material when studying without having to keep it all upstairs for one test.
   1. BIG-IP Administration Install, Initial Configuration, and Upgrade
   2. BIG-IP Administration Data Plane Concepts
   3. BIG-IP Administration Data Plane Configuration
   4. BIG-IP Administration Control Plane Administration
   5. BIG-IP Administration Support and Troubleshooting
6. I felt pretty good about the analysis questions, that stuff is pretty cemented in my brain. I work mostly with the BIG-IP APIs now, so I'm less solid on specific tmsh commands or tmui click paths. I put myself in the cone of shame on a few questions because I filmed lightboard lessons for them but I wasn't confident in the right answer. All that said, I have no idea if I passed them, but I think I hit minimally viable candidate on four of them?
7. As they were betas, there were some questions that probably need to be removed, and some questions might need to be refined a little. This is where the always fascinating psychometrics come into play. But for the most part, I though they were a good summary of the knowledge one should have for basic administration.
8. I got the first three tests completed quickly enough to take the other two. Registering for them on-site and jumping into them was painless. 
9. The cert team is the bomb-diggity. They're so helpful, friendly, encouraging, and super eager to make everyone successful. It's always a pleasure to cross paths with them!
10. The downside of betas is they are not scored immediately, so I have to wait. Jason does not like waiting...

How about you, community? Anyone else take the betas for the refreshed BIG-IP Certified Administrator (or the recertifying exam) and want to share your experience?