ASQ CSSBB Exam on 4 October 2014

Has anyone attempted the exam on 4th Oct; What is your assessment!!!.

questions :- almost 25% questions were problem solving!!! is it always so! or was it that, this time it is emphasis on the "application and solutions-orientation!"

time management :- as given in one of the blogs...I followed the 30-60-90 rule....but fell short of time for atleast 10 questions!!! but i hold it to myself, No practice...no rehearsal....didn't focus on question banks.

biggest mi(/e)ss :- not carrying the personal notes to the exam (actually resulted into more time being spent while referring to the text books!!!)

any guess on cut off marks?

Re: ASQ CSSBB Exam on Oct'4th -

Congrats on your pass.

Sorry for not responding earlier, I was hedging my bets (and building my courage) until I got my own results before I wanted to speak on the difficulty of the exam.

I also took it last week and thought it was pretty similar to the CQE exam in difficulty. I could have used a couple more minutes for both exams to rehash some of the ones I wasn't sure on. Also, on both I found the best book for reference was the coresponding CQI binder; it isn't the best to learn the material but as a quick and dirty reference during the exam, it does what it was designed to do. I had some other materials like Juran' handbook, 6sigma for dummies, etc as well that I went to occasionally but I think that bringing more than about 1/2 dozen references isn't going to help as you won't likely be familiar to enough with them to find what you need.

I was a bit supprised about the distribution of some of the questions (for instance I think there were 3 questions on confidence interval of the mean, which seamed excessive). I don't have any test-to-test experience as this is the only time I've taken it.

David

Re: ASQ CSSBB Exam on Oct'4th -

v9991 said:

Has anyone attempted the exam on 4th Oct; What is your assessment!!!.

questions :- almost 25% questions were problem solving!!! is it always so! or was it that, this time it is emphasis on the "application and solutions-orientation!"

time management :- as given in one of the blogs...I followed the 30-60-90 rule....but fell short of time for atleast 10 questions!!! but i hold it to myself, No practice...no rehearsal....didn't focus on question banks.

biggest mi(/e)ss :- not carrying the personal notes to the exam (actually resulted into more time being spent while referring to the text books!!!)

any guess on cut off marks?

Click to expand...

ASQ wants a mix of means to assess the candidate's knowledge, which reasonably should include some problem solving along with theory. As an ex-educator I approve of their using multiple test question types.

ASQ intentionally includes questions in various levels of difficulty and uses statistical results from the last exam to help determine which questions to include.

I have been known to enter fairly exhaustive notes in handy books like Pyzdek's Quick Reference Notes. It helped me learn, and also made the information available on test day as such notes have historically been allowed into the exam room.

Recent studies on learning indicate that practice exams really do help us retain the knowledge because of the frequent re-visitation because our brains are not like computer hard drives. So I support using them, especially if it means not worrying about the time during these practice sessions and going back into the texts to find the information again.

One successful tactic I've used at test time is to answer the ones I know, and rapidly skip over the ones I did not until I answered as many as I could in the time I had. I could go back with the remaining time and revisit the skipped questions, sometimes finding I did not have to do lookups after all.

I hope this helps!

Re: ASQ CSSBB Exam on Oct'4th -

actually, in the feedback form, i did suggest / request to alter the examination pattern...hope they also have some sort of review-mechanism or polling on examination patter.

I did request the exam to be in three parts.
1. essays OR solve multiple - case-studies which includes a scanario --- to derive a problem-statement, metric selection, tools usage and with some usage of tools, solutions.
2. problem solving section
3. concepts and theory part.
+ to make it a CBT based study, atleast allow the minitab or excel tools

I hope they take your suggestions seriously. I know they pay attention to people who try to point out a test question is imprecise or none of the answers are correct (or more than one answer is correct). #1 seems particularly sensible. I do not fully understand #2 and #3, and #4 will not be agreed to because they want us to solve the problems through more knowledge and lesser tools versus lesser knowledge and more powerful tools.

Jennifer Kirley said:

I do not fully understand #2 and #3,

Click to expand...

to fit the open book model, the problem-solving-questions are sprinkled across the exam-paper, instead, make it a focussed, more elaborate exam sections with more focussed and detailed...Image the exam to be in 3-sections #1#2#3 viz., each one of them being 90mins etc.,

Ithink I agree with your comment on #4..making it a CBT based part...but the point is CSSBB is not more about the stats...but application of concepts (both management - stats - etc)...
I can probably agree and understand the logic for CQE CQT etc., wherein the core of the activity is about statis.

v9991 said:

to fit the open book model, the problem-solving-questions are sprinkled across the exam-paper, instead, make it a focussed, more elaborate exam sections with more focussed and detailed...Image the exam to be in 3-sections #1#2#3 viz., each one of them being 90mins etc.,

Ithink I agree with your comment on #4..making it a CBT based part...but the point is CSSBB is not more about the stats...but application of concepts (both management - stats - etc)...
I can probably agree and understand the logic for CQE CQT etc., wherein the core of the activity is about statis.

Click to expand...

When I was there I was impressed with the effort ASQ took to make these exams, but that organization is not prepared to make more focused exams as you have described. They prefer a more randomized, mixed approach that would, in theory better apply to the diverse body of examinees.

In addition, concepts could also be a part of the focus when they review the project - did they still require you to submit one before granting you a seat for the exam?

Jennifer Kirley said:

In addition, concepts could also be a part of the focus when they review the project - did they still require you to submit one before granting you a seat for the exam?

Click to expand...

Yes, Project affidavit signed off by the lead/sponsor is till an mandatory part. but it has still got its downsides ; so i did mention/suggest to include certain project documents (removing, redacting) proprietary informations as part of affidavit.

And I am not doubting the efforts to make exam, an complete/in-depth one wrt BOK, ...I was only suggesting to make more comprehensive and better organized. (viz., when u see a person not good at concept but doing good application using excel or minitab.....set a cut off for each one of them etc., and each module has 90 mins to ans 75 questions i.e., make it tougher in each module etc.,) it should make the difference.

thank you.

v9991 said:

Has anyone attempted the exam on 4th Oct; What is your assessment!!!.

questions :- almost 25% questions were problem solving!!! is it always so! or was it that, this time it is emphasis on the "application and solutions-orientation!"

time management :- as given in one of the blogs...I followed the 30-60-90 rule....but fell short of time for atleast 10 questions!!! but i hold it to myself, No practice...no rehearsal....didn't focus on question banks.

biggest mi(/e)ss :- not carrying the personal notes to the exam (actually resulted into more time being spent while referring to the text books!!!)

any guess on cut off marks?

Click to expand...

hi! i took the CSSBB test same day as you in Singapore.

but i didnt receive any email from ASQ and the pass list isn't out yet on the website.

may i know how did you check the results?

when i logged in i saw this

rtifications
Date Certification Cert No. Status Recert Due * Expires
10/04/2014 CSSBB 15524 Active Logo Press Release 12/31/2017 12/31/2018

does this mean i passed?

sorry! i just saw the press release. i passed!

( no idea how i did it though. lol)