SEMAIS Knowledge Base 201902: Mastering an IT Certification Test

Welcome to your IT certification test. You have spent countless hours studying so you can join the group of co-workers with 20 abbreviations after their name. Of course, you heard horror stories about these examinations and its value. As a person that is ambitious and goal oriented, you decide to by-pass the distractions and study for the test.

Now its time to take the examination. You have done your best at studying, and the first test question seem foreign.  The same happens for the next 50 questions; and you wonder whether you registered for the wrong exam. Hold on a minute! Someone gave you a secret code to the test and it states, “every answer seems right”.

This sounds so familiar! I have been down this road so many times and gathered a secret code that has helped clients, friends, and co-workers to master IT examinations. Its called the KCA principle.

The initial approach to a certification test is to extract the ambiguous information and answers or areas that are not applicable.  Using SEMAIS KCA principle can help foster a more realistic approach to the examination.

Knowledge (Level 1) - Knowledge is defined as the remembering of previously learned SECURITY + information.  This is a recall of the appropriate information.  Knowledge represents the lowest level of approaching a test question in the cognitive domain.  Objectives at this level require candidates to demonstrate their knowledge of the question.

Comprehension (Level 2) - Comprehension is defined as the ability to grasp the question meaning. These learning outcomes are more complex than simple recall of information and represent the lowest level of understanding.

Application (Level 3) - Application is the ability to apply learning in new and concrete ways.  Application differs from comprehension in that application shows that students can use (apply learning correctly.

Example:

If you wanted to counter illegitimate system access by SEMAIS network administrators, which of the following will not be your primary consideration?

A.  Network administrator should be given maximum privilege across all systems and IT infrastructure.

B.  Network administrator of SEMAIS duties should be separated.

C.  Activities of network administrator should be monitored.

D.  System/network administrators should be subject to job rotation. 

Knowledge – Access privileges provide users the rights to information based on their job roles.

Comprehension – The question wants to know the process to prevent network administrators from having illegitimate access.

Application – Based on the question asking for the primary consideration and preventing access by separation of duties, continuous monitoring, and job rotation, Question A would be a low priority since it provides full rights and negates the ability to prevent illegitimate access.

As you can see, question “A” is the correct answer.  Using this strategy for the test questions in this guide will better prepare a candidate to take the examination.  As a candidate become proficient with using KCA, they will master examinations.

Dewayne Hart

www.semais.net

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