With the final touches finished, I am announcing the availability of the written L1 Practice and written L2 Practice exams. After getting feedback from members of the community, these exams were created to improve the testing process, as taking the exam online is a very different experience than taking the exam on paper. Technical information about the exams can be found on Judge Wiki (
http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Certification ), but to briefly explain how these exams breakdown…
L1 Practice (Online) – The online version of this exam is still available, and is strictly limited to those who pass the Rules Advisor exam and/or Level 2+ judges (as I do add the “Rules Advisor” role to those individuals). This exam shares content with the L1 Practice (Written) exam, so a person who takes either exam will be limited to the unique amount of material that is available. This exam can be used by anyone for pre-testing purposes, as a way to mentor and work with a L1 candidate. Each exam must be generated specific to a candidate. The passing score is 70% or greater, comparable to the actual Level 1 exam.
L1 Practice (Written) – The written version of this exam is new, and can be generated by any Level 2+ judge since this is meant to be specifically a mentoring tool and not for a person to generate the exam for themselves. This exam shares content with the L1 Practice (Online) exam, so a person who takes a personalized L1 Practice (Written) exam will be limited to the unique amount of material that is available. This exam can be used by anyone for pre-testing purposes, as a way to mentor and work with a L1 candidate. The exam may be generated for a specific person, or as a generic exam as something that any interested person may take. The passing score is 70% or greater, comparable to the actual Level 1 exam.
L2 Practice (Online) – The online version of this exam is still available, and is strictly limited to those who are Level 1+ judges. The intent is for someone to create them for themselves, so it is requested that a Level 2+ judge not create this exam for a Level 1 judge without consultation with their RC or Level 3+ judge. This exam shares content with the L2 Practice (Written) exam, so a person who takes either exam will be limited to the unique amount of material that is available. This exam can be used by anyone for pre-testing purposes, and may be required as part of regional pre-requisites for Level 2. Each exam must be generated specific to a candidate. The passing score is 80% or greater, comparable to the actual Level 2 exam. (Note that a lower score may be accepted for any regional pre-requisites; please discuss this with your RC or Level 3+ judge.)
L2 Practice (Written) – The written version of this exam is new, and can be generated by any Level 3+ judge since this is meant to be specifically a mentoring tool and not for a person to generate the exam for themselves. Especially if there is a regional pre-requisite to obtain a specific score on the exam. This exam shares content with the L2 Practice (Online) exam, so a person who takes a personalized L2 Practice (Written) exam will be limited to the unique amount of material that is available. This exam can be used by anyone for pre-testing purposes, as a way to mentor and work with a L2 candidate. The exam may be generated for a specific person, or as a generic exam as something that any interested person may take. The passing score is 80% or greater, comparable to the actual Level 2 exam.
…and I also wanted to make a couple of broad points. The Online version of either exam will be available to a person in their exam history; so if the person takes the Online version, they can view the results at any point in time. The Written version of either exam is NOT available to a person in their exam history. Because of the way the Judge Center permissions work, only Level 2+ judges can view Written exams. This makes it really important to cover the results of a Written version of the exam via a review. (The more specific the feedback, the better and more valuable it is to a candidate to study and work towards passing the exam.) Because none of these exams are actually certification exams, please limit your reviews to the standard “Evaluation” type review.
Otherwise, please make the most of this new resource. And if you have further questions, please use the Community Corner subforum for that. :)