F5 Certified Practice Exams

[PSilva]

Thinking of taking the F5 Certified 101 or 201 exams but not sure if you are ready? Ease the anxiety by taking a F5 Practice Exam!

That’s what I did, and it sure helped.

If you remember, back in August I attempted the 201-TMOS Administrator exam and successfully failed, missing by a few questions. I’ve been wanting to try again and had an opportunity last week but I hadn’t studied since that initial attempt at Agility. If I failed again, I’d have to wait another 45 days to give it another go.

So instead, I decided to take a practice exam.

Practice exams provide candidates with an accurate prediction of their performance for the live, production exams. Other than the section-level score reports, they are not intended to be used for study or learning purposes. Their entire value is based on their similarity to the production exams and their validity in predicting your performance. If you think you’re getting a sneak peek to real questions, think again. They use entirely different questions on the live exams, so unless you actually learn the underlying knowledge, 'knowing' the practice questions is completely useless and becomes waste of time.

The Practice Exams are designed to mimic the real tests with 80 questions timed to 90 minutes. There are exhibits to consider, you can flag questions to review and you get instant feedback on your results. You can complete on your own device and you can ‘alt-tab’ to look up the answers if you so desire. Not that you should – defeats the purpose. While you do not get an actual score, you do get an indication if you Passed or Failed and insight (Below/Borderline/Meets) on how you did on the sections.

As you can see, 4 months of not studying doomed my fate. The 201 is no fly-by and really requires daily hands on experience. If I had done well, I could have taken the real exam the following day. This way, I know exactly where I need to focus and what I need to do to finally pass the 201.

They don't allow unlimited access to the practice exams and recommend using the practice exams no more than two, at most three, times as part of your preparation. Once you become familiar with the questions, the practice exam loses its value.

Practice exams are delivered via their Zoomorphix Exam Studio system and only available to registered candidates. They have 101 and 201 rehearsals with 301a, 302 and 303 practice exams coming soon.

If you’re preparing for a @F5Certified exam, you can review some of the F5 Certification study materials that are available.

Good luck!

ps

[BigD_300005]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[Jimmy_L]

"successfully failed' heh heh

[Thomas_McLean_1]

Thanks for the write up Peter.

One question...why isn’t the 301b going to be added to the practise exams? Actually two questions....do you have rough timescales for the deployment of these resources?

Cheers

[Ken_Salchow]

Thomas - the short answer is that while we fully intend to deliver practice versions of our exams, we cannot tell you if, or even when, any will be released.

The longer answer: The value of our practice exams is that they are real, valid exams; i.e. we could have used them for production, but designated them as practice exams. This gives candidates a true assessment of their preparedness and expected performance on the production exam.

In order to do this, we need enough validated questions to build both a production exam as well as an independent practice version (no shared questions). In the case of 301b, we did not have sufficient beta participation to validate enough items to do this. We released the production version and are reviewing the performance of the pilot items on that exam to see if we can build a practice exam using these items (this happened this week). Although the psychometricians are still reviewing the data, the preliminary review suggested that we still do not have sufficient items to field a practice exam.

Frankly, we could put a practice exam out just for the sake of offering one; however, without being truly equivalent to the production version, it would make us look good, but be dishonest and not beneficial to candidates. I won't do that. Unless what we have has true value and is empirically capable of assessing production performance and producing valid guidance, I can't in good-conscious put it out there. That is not how we work.

BTW This is a good example of why candidate participation in exam development is so important. In addition to small-group participation in exam development, we also do a large-scale Job-Task Analysis Survey and Beta Exam for every exam version. Despite the fact the JTA survey allows candidates to provide real-world evaluations to determine what topics are included in the exam, we generally get very limited participation. The same goes for beta. We sent out over 4,000 invitations to the currently running 304Beta and as of today have less than 200 candidates who have taken or scheduled the exam. Based on this, I don't know if we will be able to field a practice exam for this upcoming exam either. I just don't know until all the data comes in.

Cheers,

[karthik_virtuos]

Hi All,

Thanks in Advance for helping me out.

I am not able to log into the portal where we should book and take the Test Exams. Are the Credentials different for this "Zoomorphix Exam Studio system"? And there is NO link which takes us to Customer support from that portal. I have tried Reset Password multiple times as of now.

[Ken_Salchow]

Practice exams are delivered via our Zoomorphix Exam Studio system (https://portal-v5.examstudio.com/Default.aspx?id=20882 ). You should have received an email with your login information; however, you must already have registered with our program and gotten an F5 Candidate ID.

If you cannot find this email, please go to the site and select the "Forgot your password?" link to reset your credentials using the email address you used to register with the F5 Certified! program.

Once you are able to login to Exam Studio (using your F5 Candidate ID as your username), simply click the "Shop Front" link in the navigation bar and you will see all of the currently available practice exams and options.

[gneerajg_344188]

Hi Peter, I tried one attempt and 'alt-tab' did not work. Although I did not intend to do so but thought might be an good excuse to know your shortcomings and prepare better for the next time. Is there any other way to look for the answer. Any insight would be helpful!!

Raj

[Ken_Salchow]

Raj,

As I've expressed before, the practice exams aren't really about the specific questions, but how you do overall. It validly predicts how you would do the the production exam, and gives you a sense of where you need to study if you are not prepared. Searching for answers an individual questions, especially during the practice exam, makes that prediction invalid - because you couldn't do that during the actual exam.

Just my thoughts.

[W_Murphy]

I was able to log onto the exam site and take 1 of two tests I purchased, however when I attempt to go back to take the second exam, I get a failed account ( username/password) I click on the reset link and successfully reset my password, but when I try to log on it fails using the new password. This is an indication that the account is locked or disabled. I sent an e-mail to the support center and even called and talked to a support person both have been useless so far. I assume they have a 24 or 48 hour turn around which is quite disappointing.

[Ken_Salchow]

W.Murphy,

I don't recall seeing any emails to the support@ address, our primary support email, but I don't answer all of them so I might have missed it. We have a 72-hour turn around on certification support issues as we do not have 24x7 coverage; however, we normally reply much quicker. F5 product support cannot help you with these systems.

Your account is not locked in any way. Most people experience the username/password issue because they are using their email address to login to ESO, rather than their F5 Candidate ID. Please make sure you are using your F5 Candidate ID as your username when you login and if you continue to have problems, please email us at Support@ and provide as much information as possible, including screen captures if possible.

Cheers,

Ken

[W_Murphy]

Ken;

Thanks for the reply, you are correct I was using my e-mail. I will use my candidate ID. I know it can get confusing as with F5 is seams there are different logins for each piece such as logging into Dev Central, or F5 Support. But I appreciate your assistance and will make note of the proper logins.

[Ken_Salchow]

W.Murphy,

It probably won't make you feel any better, but F5 employees suffer from the same kludge of systems and accounts. I guess you could call it a "known issue"; one which I have high hopes will be addressed in the coming year or so.

cheers!

[Rodrigo_Silva_1]

Are there any clues about releasing 303 practice exam?

[Ken_Salchow]

303 has been available for sometime. 304 should be available by the end of September.

[Lingxu_217141]

Can't see 303 is there yet

[Abed_AL-R]

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/85832/85832-6334053537076572160 is not working anymore

[Abed_AL-R]

will the practice exam give the correct answers of all the questions after passing/failing the exam ?

[Ken_Salchow]

The practice exams will NOT give correct answers to all of the questions, as that would diminished its ability to predict your performance on the real exam. It also won't help you on the real exam, because none of the practice exam questions are on the real exam.

The link mentioned above works for me, although LinkedIn has been making a lot of changes which might have caused issues. That link explains this, but to reiterate:

F5 practice exams are not a tool for learning, teaching, training, etc. They are an accurate way to assess your readiness for the actual exam. The practice exams are psychometricly equivalent to the real exams and, therefore, highly predictive of your performance: if you pass the practice exam, you are likely to pass the real one. This is only possible if we treat it exactly like a production exam and do not expose the questions/answers.

Beyond that, the practice exam does give you valuable, section-level feedback on your performance to help identify weak areas as well as a simulated exam experience to help candidates prepare psychologically for the exam.

[Ken_Salchow]

BTW - the practice exams were offline for less than 24-hours while we did some maintenance on them; however, they are all back ... including not only 303, but the new 304 as well.

[Abed_AL-R]

I purchased one 101 exam and I want to purchase another one . But if the questions are the same then it is not that much useful to me .. Will the questions be different if I attempt the second time ?

[Ken_Salchow]

No - they will be the same.

Many people are confused by our practice exams because they are used to the way other programs do them. Our practice exams should not be used as a way to "study" directly, but as a valid assessment of your preparedness for the official exam. Practice exam results will be highly predictive of your production exam performance. In addition, we do provide section-level feedback on where to study to improve. HOWEVER, you should never study the questions in the exam, you need to study the material related to the section. It is not about the questions, but the knowledge the questions are designed to measure.

This also why we never recommend taking the practice exam more than two or three times. By the second or third time, your results are more predictive of how well you know the exam, than they are how well you know the underlying knowledge.

So - the value of the practice exam is in simulating the production exam in format, time, and difficulty as the production exam, not in having a bunch of questions to "study"; however, this value does decrease with every practice exam attempt.

[ErikT081912_387]

I have tried both links above with no luck...

[Ken_Salchow]

Which links are you referring to? If the LinkedIn links, it should be noted that they are posted within the F5 Certified! Professionals group, meaning that you must be a member of that group in order read the post.

We approve all requests for access to the group, although it may take a couple of days depending on when the request is made and our schedules.

[Mahi]

Do they have 301a exam available?

[Sushil_Kolekar]

I am not able to login with my F5 candidate ID username and password. Please help me for the same

[Curious1]

I have found all of the 300 level practice exams to be most helpful. Now completing my 401 study and just noticed there is no 401 exam available. Any plans to release this soon?

[Nikoolayy1]

To bad that for 401 there is still no practice exam 😞

[rahimcs027]

How Can i get access to    https://portal-v5.examstudio.com/

Somebody please guide me.

[uniqng]

@rahimcs027 - try to send an email to support@zoomorphix.zohosupport.com requesting access and provide them with your F5 candidate ID

Any plans to release 401 and 402 practice exams?

[rahimcs027]

Thanks for the advise. I have requested for Access Permission.

Let See..

[KCrest]

@rahimcs027 The F5 Certified team can help you with ExamStudio access. This email address might work better: support@mail.education.f5.com 🙂

[KCrest]

@uniqng Good question about the 401 and 402 exams! There aren't any practice exams, yet. 

Developing the 401 and 402 exams has been challenging, and the process simply hasn't yielded enough items for a high quality practice exam. 

[Nikoolayy1]

Just as a side note the F5 exams are great and the new 401 was a nice challenge but the exams need to be on newer  versions like 14.1/15.1/16.1 as some are on versions that are end of life.

[PSilva]

Thanks @KCrest !! Also some more info from F5 Certification:

Here is the correct url https://portal-v5.examstudio.com/default.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f%3fid%3d20882&id=20882

Here's more information on ESO https://education.f5.com/hc/en-us/articles/8469962897307-How-do-I-reset-my-Exam-Studio-Online-ESO-Pa...