Study Materials for Preparing for ASQ Certification Exams

[leanne - 2009]

Someone emailed me to ask about cert materials. I do not have any for sale or trade, however, I will be happy to share with you where I've gotten exam preparation materials.



Quality Council of Indiana, Inc.
602 West Paris Avenue
W. Terre Haute, IN 47885
800-660-4215

Quality America Inc.
P.O. Box 31055
Tucson, AZ 85751-1055
800-643-9889

 

[Marc]

Can you give us some information such as how well you liked each of their material? Maybe good aspects and bad aspects?

 

[Wes Bucey]

Anybody else besides Leanne want to comment on the sources and the value they offer?

 

[leanne - 2009]

Quality America:
The Quality America CQA book was basically all I took into the exam. Prior to the exam I worked practice exams for about 5 hours/week for several months before the exam. Even with may years of auditing, I was not passing the CD practice exams. I was averaging 67%, however, I passed the CQA so I feel like it did a good job with helping me prepare. Bad aspect: CD exam had too much statistics & there were as I recall little to no stats in the CQA exam. OTOH, that should help with the CQE

Quality Council of Indiana:
I am planning to re-take the CQE June '06 (I let it lapse a few years ago) so I can't comment on preparation yet with the QCI materials. I am doing the same process of study for the CQE except I've bumped up the number of hours/week I am reading. I have not started with the CD yet. I'll post an update later.

 

[Govind]

My experience

Anybody else besides Leanne want to comment on the sources and the value they offer?

There are basically 3 major players in Certification materials: QCI, ASQ and Quality America. The rest of the providers offer material for a specific certification (example Westfall for CSQE, QualityWBT for CQA).

Comparing ASQ and QCI material:
I used QCI material for the preparation of all my 6 certifications.

My first certification was CQMgr. Since I did a refresher course from the local section, they supplied the Quality Management Division’s Lesson Plan kit and CQMgr Handbook. It is a good reference book, but I had difficulty as an exam preparation material. (This distinction exists in all certification preparation materials). QCI is a good exam preparation material but not a reference handbook. You need these both as an exam taker and a professional. As close to 10 days to exam, I got hold of QCI CQMgr preparation which probably helped me immensely in the exam. Since then I used QCI for all my other certifications. The most important thing I like about QCI is it arrangement in the order of Body of Knowledge. This ensure that you don’t miss any sub sections while preparation for the exam. This is probably I would say the strength of QCI. The least I like about QCI is, about 8~12% of CD questions are too subjective, contradict among other questions or probably even incorrect. The rational for some questions “and the logic” really frustrates users.

Comparing QCI and QA:
After I was done with many other certifications, as the last one, I decided to write CRE. This is an exam that is in a totally different league compared other certification and also the most difficult one. So I browsed the Quality America website and tried the sample questions. I was very impressed with the difficulty level and clarity of those questions. I bought the CRE Quality America books and CD. It was not the same as preparation with QCI material. I realized that QA had picked best questions and used in the public quiz and the other questions in the CD is not of the same maturity and clarity as those of the quiz. (This was back in 2004). They may have improved by now. I even sent my detailed feedback to QA for improvement. That time I realized I needed QCI and got hold of that material 8 weeks before exam and passed. I understand Quality America is better in CQE preparation. I think this is where they have stronger presence.

I have not got the opportunity to compare all 3 for a given exam. All the above are my personal opinion.

Hope this helps. Please send me a PM if you have any questions.
Regards,
Govind Ramu, P.Eng,
ASQ CQMgr, CQE, CSSBB, CQA, CSQE, CRE.

 

[Kevin H]

My experience is with the CQA and new Mgr of Quality/Org. Exc. I keep trying to take the CQE, and in each case life interferes. In all 3 instances, I've used my local ASQ section (Pittsburgh, PA) for preparation - they offer good review course for most if not all ASQ tests.

The gentlemen teaching the CQA & CQE prep courses each use material that they have prepared. The teacher for the CMQ/OE uses the ASQ text, with some supplemental information and questions - especiallly for the essay portion of the test.

I felt that the ASQ text for CMQ/OE was well put together, and is a valuable reference. I actually used it very little during the test, possibly checking 6 or 7 responses and relying on memory, knowledge and experience for the balance.

I had a similar experience for CQA test - I took the sections's prepared binder, and B. Scott Parsowith's "Fundamentals of Quality Auditing" to the test used both very little, again maybe 6 to 8 questions.

I took the CMQ/OE within 1 week of finishing the prep class. I took the CQA over 1 year after finishing the prep class.

 

[Marc]

Also See What are the best CQE & CQA preparation books? and CQE preparation - I am preparing for CQE exam.