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> (Warning: statistics that follow are many years old,
> half-remembered, and rounded to the nearest quartile. Use
> with caution!) For
> students with English as a first language, the failure rate
> on this test one
> year reached ca. 50%, with an additional 25% achieving only a
> marginal pass.
> The test was not difficult: the equivalent of the traditional
> high school
> "what I did on my summer vacation" essay.
An additional warning could be added with regard to _what_ they were looking
for in this test and how it was administered.
To get into a University of California school (late 80s), everyone had to
pass the "Subject A", a writing test. Those that didn't had to take a
special class their first quarter. Test Subject A, to me, only tested
whether you could write the "traditional" 5-paragraph essay (intro, point 1,
point 2, point 3, conclusion) on some random topic that they gave you at the
beginning of the test. I don't work like that. I don't do 5-paragraph essays
well. And definitely not off the top of my head. Sometimes I find it comical
that I didn't pass that test, yet now I spend a majority of my time writing.
To me, they tested whether you could write for a test, which doesn't show
you much. My husband has better grammar than most people I know, but he
couldn't spell if his life depended on it. Yea for spelling checkers.
I was pro-certification at one point, very briefly. I'm not now.
Someone mentioned how it would make it easier for the hiring company. Let's
see... look through a portfolio or see if they have the certificate? Sounds
like an easy choice for the hiring company.
It's a similar situation for older graduates of my university. We didn't get
grades (very few, at least), only evaluations. Yet, we have a very high
acceptance rate into grad school. Yes, the admissions people have to spend a
little more time with our applications, but they learn a lot more.
The same would be true about certification vs. a portfolio review. Your
portfolio can say A LOT.
I guess I'm anti-certification now. But if you want one, get it. Heck, I do.
I wanted to get more knowledge about the wide variety of things that are
"technical communication", so I signed up for a certificate program. But it,
to me, certifies the "writing" part, not the "technical". I don't think
there can be a general certification for "technical" when it covers sooooo
much. Heck, I've written about telecomm hardware, medical hardware, and
end-user software. No single test could possibly cover all that!
Ok, I'm done. =)
Christi Carew
Product Marketing Documentation Specialist
ccarew -at- rangestar -dot- com
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