Tested Yesterday

Tested Yesterday

Postby shortkm1 » Fri Dec 23, 2016 5:02 am

I just took the 5.0 PDD exam yesterday and thought it would share my thoughts. (Please let me know if I have divulged too much information here. I will be happy to alter or delete anything as needed. It is my understanding, that all of this information regarding the interface, etc, is available to testers prior to taking the exam.)

Some background: I transitioned from 4.0 (passed the first try: CDS, PPP, and SPD in that order) to 5.0. This was my second exam of 5.0. I had given myself about a month to study for it which is what I had done for each of the 4.0 exams (SPD I only studied for 2 weeks) and the other 5.0 exam (PPD).

See this post for my initial thoughts on the interface (and other thoughts on PPD). I still feel the same way about the interface 8-)
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=45780

I don't have a lot of additional insight from my previous post. Mostly, what I would like to get across is how similar these two tests (PPD & PDD) were, which I know will not surprise you since we all know the divisions its covering. Basically, it felt like the exact same material with a few more calculation questions thrown in for PDD and maybe a little more in depth. These calculations were NOT hard. They seemed like the easiest part to me. There were also a lot more hot spot/drag-n-drop questions, which again, I thought were fairly easy.

What I used to study:

When I took PPD, there was a lot of information on the exam that I did not feel prepared for. I had studied mostly Ballast 5.0 (not sure this is the best set of material - seems to have more errors than I would have liked and doesn't feel like it had a direct correlation to the exams) but only the chapters that pertained to PPD. So I left that exam feeling pretty bad. Then, when I started studying for PDD (about 2 days later), I started finding the answers to so many of the questions I felt like I didn't on PPD. So when I was studying for PDD, I made sure to go back and review all of my notes that I took on the PPD material. I am so glad I did that and think it really helped. I felt a lot better coming out of PDD than I did coming out of PPD.

My advice:

- Don't fret too much over the equations. You shouldn't need to MEMORIZE most of them (especially not the complex ones...see the handbook for what is provided)...just know how and when to use them. In my experience, they were provided for the most part. On PDD, I think I might have looked at those references once during the test...just didn't need them.
- Again with this exam, I skipped right to the Case Studies and took those questions first. I WOULD HIGHLY SUGGEST IT. That way you won't run out of time on those. (I have seen others post who did and did not do it - seems like everyone who did is more satisfied than those who didn't)
- If you are studying for this PDD test, make sure you review your PPD material. I did and I think it really helped. You might even consider taking them very close together. If I could go back in time, I would have given myself way more time to study (probably 2 months) and taken both PPD and PDD within a week.
- I would also suggest looking over other material than Ballast. I didn't for PPD and really regretted it. I did a little for PDD and felt much better, even with that so little extra (I just took the Designer Hacks quizzes for 4.0)

Hope this is helpful! Good luck to you all! Keep your fingers crossed for me :)
shortkm1
 
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Re: Tested Yesterday

Postby Travisarch » Sun Dec 25, 2016 7:28 am

I just tested on Friday as well...compared to PPD the time is much more constrained. Don't feel as good on this one as I felt on PPD.

I dwelled too much on calculations and only had 1hr left for case studies even with skipping few calculation questions. I ran out of time while trying to finish last questions that I would have gotten if I only had 1more minute. ugh worst is we gotta wait like 2 months to find results
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Re: Tested Yesterday

Postby nickp1085 » Mon Jan 02, 2017 2:12 pm

@shortkim1, you mention you would go back to study PPD and PDD together and then take the two tests fairly close together. I am debating this strategy, because I prefer to cover all material together. However, based on most reviews for PDD and PPD, my take is SS & BS are the core, with supplementary materials from PPP, CDS, SPD and BDCS. Would you find that to be a fair assessment? I have already passed CDS, SPD, PPP and would still re-review all these but just wondering if I should devote as much time to BDCS as I would SS and BS? If you can't tell, I'm trying to study from 4.0.
nickp1085
 

Re: Tested Yesterday

Postby shortkm1 » Tue Jan 03, 2017 5:44 am

nickp1085 wrote:However, based on most reviews for PDD and PPD, my take is SS & BS are the core, with supplementary materials from PPP, CDS, SPD and BDCS. Would you find that to be a fair assessment? I have already passed CDS, SPD, PPP and would still re-review all these but just wondering if I should devote as much time to BDCS as I would SS and BS? If you can't tell, I'm trying to study from 4.0.


I would say that PPD has more BDCS than PDD. And PDD has more BS than PPD. Both had SS, (PDD looked at more calculations than PPD but they both still had questions that you would find from studying SS).

I know this is probably not the answer you were looking for, but I would study all three (SS,BS, & BDCS). I did not review any of the PPP, CDS, or SPD material before either test (mostly because I had taken them so recently). If it has been a while since you took those, they would be good to review as well. In my post about PPD, I mentioned that some of the exact same questions I had on SPD were on my PPD exam (the same is true for PPP and CDS on the PDD exam) so you still need to know that stuff. But if you feel confident in it, then don't put too much pressure on going over it.
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Re: Tested Yesterday

Postby nickp1085 » Tue Jan 03, 2017 6:35 pm

@shortkm1, thank you so much for this! This is exactly what I was looking for. This just confirms my original thought process to study all SS, BS, BCDS equally for PDD & PPD.
nickp1085
 

Re: Tested Yesterday

Postby shortkm1 » Thu Mar 30, 2017 8:31 am

I just found out that I passed PDD! HOORAY!! That might help validate anything I said above :) Still working on retaking PPD.
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