LucaB - I studied about 3 hours a night for about 7 business days right before the test. I did take the sample test several months before the actual test during a few lunch hours. I have 2 young kids so I don't have much time outside of work.
Taking the sample test with the materials you plan to have available is a honest example of what to expect. Don't cheat yourself and look things up on the pratice test or give yourself more time. You will pay for it later. The other tests I found online were not even similar test formatts, but the sample provided by ASQ was spot on with the formatt.
I worked at a corperate quality role from my first days of internship until 2 years ago I took a plant job to get some different experience (4 years total HQ). While working at HQ I worked on new product launches, several aquisitions and a consolidation of 2 joint venture plants into a new plant and performed the occasional supplier evaluations. I am in the heavy truck industy so
APQP, SixSigma, TS16949 is the usual. I would say I'm not a expert at any one area, just have experience in many areas of quality. I found some of the statistics tough even though I have strong engineering background (ME degree, durability concentration). They are just not used everyday like problem solving\people management skills. You tend to have standard things you have to do and if you need something else you digg it up as needed as I did on the test.
I personally feel there is too much stress on the statistics and not enough on business sense and problem solving. I can honestly say in both positions I have held a good business sense and problem solving skills are used 10 to 1 vs. statistics knowledge. I suppose in a small company it would be more important if you can't lean on a master black belt for tough problems or give direction when stuck.
Hope this helps some way. Just go for it, I felt the hype about the toughness is overplayed.
