Just took part III and very upset

[Howie Woo]

I just took part III less than an hour ago. I am very upset with the questions asked. I feel that I was not given a fair chance. Without giving away the questions, let me explain: there were 4 questions. One was: which mechanism did you use for xxx? another was why did you use such mechanism for xxx (refering to the previous question). And another one was: what did you do to achieve yyy? I am upset because xxx and yyy are not explicitly mentioned in the assignment. The assignment only required us to draw a class diagram, a component diagram and sequence or collaboration diagrams for the use cases, plus a list of assumptions. So in my upload, I did not address xxx and yyy. So how am I supposed to answer "why did you use such mechanism for xxx"? I did not even say I used xxx for God's sake! It would be more appropriate for them to ask me: why do you think your architecture will be able to achieve zzz goals (in fact the other question is of this type, which I am OK with). So in the end, I had to put some "disclaimers" in my answers such as "I didn't address this problem in my assignment, but I would ... ". This is very silly. I feel like Sun is not taking these questions seriously. I know these questions basically are to test our understanding and how we would justify our design decisions, but at least they should word these questions better.
Howie

[Bagwan Mehrat]

You should chill out!
By coincidence, I happened to already post today about why I don't think Part III is all that important. But if you go back to your assignment, you'll see that 75% of your grade is whether your diagrams addressed requirements, and 25% is for whether they were UML compliant. So what percentage is left that could count from your essay exams? 0%!!

[Anonymous]

Hi,
Just saw a message from Len White, his experiences were almost the same as you. He has passed with 87%.
It looks to me that Part II requirements and Part III questions seems to be far apart.
Hope for the best..
Anil

[Jim Baker]

0%? So we can skip it.

[Chris Mathews]

Sun probably doesn't care as long as they get their $150 for the exam III voucher. You may have to show up at the test center to press next a few times.

[Howie Woo]

I, for one, took Part III seriously. I thought it was an integral part of the whole exam, and even more tightly coupled with part II. I am not so much upset as what questions were asked, I am upset with the way the questions were asked. That is, by asking these questions the way they did, they kinda took away the flexibility we might have had in our design.
If they just asked "why do you think your design is strong in xxx area", or "how do you think your design would perform in xxx area", that is fine. But when they ask "what specific mechanism did you use in your design", they really left you with no choice.
Howie

[Bagwan Mehrat]

Howie,
If you think that the diagrams you submitted were good, then trust that, and wait for your certificate to come in.
The questions that Sun asks you can't take "away the flexibility we might have had in our design". By the time the questions were asked of you, you had already submitted your assignment.
Consider the evidence against Sun explicitly relying on the essay exam to grade you:
1. The assignment explicitly states that your grade is 40% class diagram, 40% component diagram, and 20% sequence/collaboration diagram. Well, it seems that the proportions have recently changed, but notice that they don't mention anything about the essay in their grading criteria.
2. People who fail are not required to retake the essay exam. You only need to resubmit the assignment. But what if your poor grade was due to a poor essay exam? Then, how could your grade possibly be improved, since you can't retake it? Through their actions, Sun is saying that situation is not possible, because the essay exam does not count!
So what's the essay exam for? My guess is that first, it helps verify the authenticity of the exam. They DELIBERATELY ask poor and pointed questions, as you noticed, because they want to try to trip you up. Smash the watch with a hammer and see what falls out, as it were. Second, they want CONTEXT for the assignment. Since they don't require that you write any accompanying notes, they want to make sure that you have your say, in your own words, regarding your assignment. For example, did you leave out a certain detail because of a design choice, or because you forgot? These things may not be immediately clear from the diagrams alone, and this may help them grade your assignment more quickly.
I felt the same way you did about the essay exam. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but I essentially blew it off. I PASSED.
CONGRATULATIONS IN ADVANCE!

[Howie Woo]

Thank you very much, Bagwan!
You brought up a good point: they may have done it intentionally to verify the authenticity. I hope your congrats in advance brings me good luck!
Howie

[Asha Fernandes]

Very well said Bhagwan !!
You may be right about Essay not being part of grading since they have said it so!(implicitly)
I did not have any problems with the question, but In the Essay exam I did contradict my self at one point and I realized right after I left the prometric centre and this is why waiting for the results was the hardest and longest time for me, as I was worried that they may fail me. Well I did pass, however, I did loose 10 marks in component diagram and it beats me!.
So I think you are right, Essay is just an Essay to verify you did the assignment yourself,
So Howie just relax, I am sure everything will turn out just fine.
Thanks
Asha

[Howie Woo]

OK, it looks like I worried about nothing. To be sure, I was confident about my diagrams, it's just that I didn't explicitly address some of the issues asked in part III. Anyway, now I can take a vacation :-)
Thanks to all who helped me.
Class Diagram (44 maximum) .......................... 42
Component Diagram (44 maximum) ...................... 39 Sequence/Colloboration Diagrams (12 maximum) ........ 7

[Daniel CarMichael]

Would you mind to tell us what makes you get the high marks in the class diagram and the component diagram?

[Mark Spritzler]

Congrats Howie. Well Done.
Gald your worrying is over.
Mark

[Bagwan Mehrat]

Congratulations, Howie. Told ya!
You got your results back very quickly. They must have liked your work!

[Howie Woo]

Thanks again for all the responses. Here's my experience:
I kept my class diagram and component diagrams simple. I only had about 15 classes in my class diagram. I submitted multiple component diagrams, each containing about 4 or 5 components. I am not sure why I got such low score on the sequence diagrams, because I actually spent more time on the sequence diagrams more than anything else. However, as I was examining the sequence diagrams, I was able to spot some flaws in my class and component diagrams (or the whole design for that matter). So all is not lost. I only wish I explicitly addressed some of the issues that were asked in Part III, that way I would not have to worry . My "assumptions" section did not cover a great deal of details (I did address some of the design issues), specifically, I did not mention anything about the use cases (maybe that's why I got low score on the sequence diagrams).
Overall, my suggestion is: keep things simple. But I understand different testers may have different scorers, so your mileage may vary (no pun intended).
Howie

[Jim Baker]

Howie:
When did you upload your Part II and
take the Part III test? Is it
true to take only two weeks to get the result?
Thanks.
JB

[Howie Woo]

I believe I uploaded on 4/7 and took part III on 4/11 and go my results on 4/29. But I know that different people have different experiences

[Jim Baker]

Did they send you an email?

[Ian B Anderson]

Congratulations!
Ian

[Howie Woo]

No I still haven't got any emails from them. But I was checking their website everyday.
https://www.galton.com/~sun_s/login.html