Linux+ XK1-006 beta experience

2024-11-08 14:39:00

Almost a year ago I had my first frustrating experience with the OnVue checkin process on my mobile phone. Today I learned a new aspect to this: the OnVue checkin process does not work on Apple iOS devices that have Lockdown Mode enabled.

Aside from that OnVue was great to work with, as always. The proctor was polite and efficient, I got my remote testing setup approved really quickly. The software worked fine, the checkin went well, we went over the rules quickly and I was allowed to start testing within 15 minutes. 

I don't know what's up with people on Reddit, who complain about OnVue and proctoring. I have a head cold and I coughed and sneezed and snorted a lot during my exam. I had zero complaints from anyone!

As to the XK1-006 Linux+ beta exam: I'm not as enthused as I was about XK1-005.

• Most of the questions about Linux-proper are very similar to what they always were. Decent quality, decent difficulty.
• Some of the questions are getting really old, they're classics that have been in every Linux exam (from LPIC, through Linux+ to RHCSA) for over twenty years now. 
• Some of the questions seemed to go off-scope wildly, covering things that are on LPIC1/2 but not on Linux+. That was very weird. 
• The new objectives' coverage feels almost farcical.
  • The inclusion of AI smacks of "we had to put AI in every new exam" and the questions really have no relation to Linux systems administration. 
  • The large majority of questions on the new objectives never go beyond dry regurgitation of simple facts and definitions. Where the Linux-proper questions often require insight and experience, these don't. What's more, despite seemingly being new objectives they really don't go much deeper than what was asked in version 005. 
• I really dislike the PBQs about commands and commandline options. I did not get the old-school simulated shells that I had for 003 and 004. All of them were multi-tabbed questions (some with multiple sub-tabs per tab!) where you either clicked buttons or used pulldown menus to construct whatever command you thought you'd need. 

I had 115 questions, 4 of which were PBQ. I needed a bit more than two of the three hours I'd been given. A lot of my time went into filling out comments, giving feedback to CompTIA. I just really hope they actually get and read all those comments, so that wasn't wasted time.

One thought struck me earlier today: I get the feeling that CompTIA are trying to shoehorn Linux+ into DevOps+ or something. They're adding on all kinds of stuff that doesn't belong on a junior Linux sysadmin exam and instead should be on an exam for more experienced people with a more diverse job role.

I think that, if CompTIA don't change the objectives to go more on-focus back to Linux, I'll suggest we switch to LFCS (or even LPIC) with my students.

kilala.nl tags: work, studies,

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