.:aaron.helton:.

Now that I am back from San Francisco and partially rested up, I figured this would be a good time to post my thoughts on the NCRE exam for 2009.  This posting will cover (in no particular order) everything from choice of exam time, the exam’s structure and time constraints, the contents of the exam, and the overall experience of applying for this program.  Since I only took the Information Technology exam, I can only speak to that.  I am interested in hearing from anyone who took the exam in any subject and any testing location, so please share your experiences either on this topic or in the Open Thread.

Application Process

Upon speaking with another test-taker after the exam, I came to understand just why it is that people end up on my blog when they are looking for information about the NCRE.  From what I can tell, this process is not unlike most everything else about the UN: opaque.  That is, there’s very little transparency in the process.  I can understand being secretive so that the integrity of the application process can be maintained, but it seems that the total lack of information simply creaets confusion.  People don’t look on my blog for NCRE information because they are curious about what I have to say.  They are looking here because there just isn’t anything else out there.  Come on, UN!  By failing to provide good, correct, and easily accessible information about this, people resort to stumbling across blogs whose quality and accuracy are not guaranteed.

Testing Time

Ok, so four and a half hours is probably not terribly unreasonable for an exam.  That said, WHY would you need to set the time such that the bulk of the test occurs after the local lunch time?  By the time I got about halfway through the subject-specific exam, I started feeling pretty weak.  If you want higher quality test results, consider moving this to, say, 9 AM instead of 11.  At least that way a hearty breakfast will be sufficient to carry one through to the end.

General Paper (45 minutes, 300? points)

The first section of the exam was a paper that needed to be summarized, with the final product being somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-300 words.  I’m not sure if the subject of the paper was different for each booklet, but mine was about mycodiesel, a type of biofuel.  As far as I can tell, there is no reasonable way to study for this portion, and it was worth something like 300 points (roughly 25% of the whole exam’s total points).

Specialized Paper (3 hours, 45 minutes)

The second section was much more involved.  Since I took the IT exam, my portion consisted of problems of interest to someone with an IT background.  I seriously doubt anyone without a solid background in IT would have been able to answer most of the questions in any meaningful way.

The subject test was divided into two subsections, essays and questions.  I will attempt to recall the essence of  each question that was asked, but I cannot guarantee that any of them will be very accurate.  Further, there is no guarantee that these questions will be used ever again.

Essay 1 (120 points)

You are tasked with developing an IT infrastructure (including power generation and long range communications) for a new UN mission located in an unstable, war-torn country.  The HQ is in a four story building with no existing infrastructure, and the mission will be supported by two remote field offices.  The IT infrastructure should be sufficient to provide PC, printer, email, internet, and intranet support for 150 employees at the HQ and 40 employees at each field office.  Deliverables for this essay are: an equipment list, a diagram for the infrastructure, and methods for securing the infrastructure.

Essay 2 (120 points)

You are asked to develop a data model for a conference database system in which any number of workshops are offered, people register to attend workshops, and some attendees will be teaching the workshops.  There are many other details in this essay text, but I can’t recall them all.  The deliverables are: an ERD diagram, SQL queries against that ERD that answer a number of questions (such as how many workshop instructors did not sign up to attend any workshops), and some information about how to approach normalization with respect to this ERD.

Essay 3 (120 points)

Describe the six phases of the SDLC and give some examples.  Follow-up: what is the most important phase?

Questions (30 points each)

1. Describe Service Oriented Architecture, or SOA.
2. ?
3. ?
4. ?
5. Write an algorithm to sort the elements of an array of N elements; describe the method and show the code (or pseudocode).
6. What are the differences between HTTP methods POST and GET?
7. Describe RAID.
8. What is AJAX, and what are its advantages and disadvantages?

OK, so there are some gaps I can’t fill, and the order is quite likely off.  If anyone else remembers what I have forgotten (assuming your test was the same subject and the tests for IT were all organised the same way), let me know (you can post them in the comments, and if you prefer that your comment not be published, just let me know in the comment and I will just leave it in awaiting approval).

Final Thoughts

Overall, the test was tough in places, but some of the questions were pretty easy.  What I found easy, of course, might be the bane of someone else’s existence, so take that for what it’s worth.  What are your thoughts?