By Ed Tittel and James Michael Stewart

There are those who firmly believe that it’s impossible to have too much of a good thing. Even so, there probably isn’t anybody willing to extend that belief so far as to claim that you can never accumulate too many materials to help you prepare for a certification exam. Rather than going completely overboard, therefore, we’ll try to explain when it’s time to say “Enough already!” when accumulating preparation materials, before you cry “Uncle!” We’ll also explain some strategies you can use to help identify and choose those preparation materials that are most likely to help you.

To begin with, there are many different ways to draw the line between just enough and too much when it comes to certification preparation. Some of the most important criteria for drawing that line will depend on the following elements in your preparation strategy:

• Time: As Windows NT 4.0 MCSEs are finding out, certifications don’t last forever. (That credential expires on Dec. 31, 2001.) The upshot of expiration dates is that you can’t take forever to get certified, and you must plan to maintain most certifications once you obtain them. Also, because life, work and family usually take precedence over study, you must be able to work within whatever limited number of hours you can devote to certification preparation on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Thus, an important part of saying “enough” when preparing for certification will depend on spending the right amount of time on the task.

• Budget: Everybody is limited by how much money they can spend on preparation for a certification. So an important component in deciding when to say enough will depend on how much money you can afford to spend or how much financial support your employer is willing to provide for testing and preparation. Most people tend to spend as much on preparation materials as they can afford and not a cent more!

• Knowledge base: The more you already know about an exam topic, the less preparation you need in general, and the less material you’ll need to accumulate in particular. That’s why we describe two strategies: a minimalist strategy for those who are preparing for an exam and don’t necessarily have to learn the concepts and technologies that underlie it and a more full-blown strategy for those who have to learn at the same time that they are preparing for one or more examinations.

• Readiness: Our own personal experiences have been that it’s time to say enough only when you’re truly ready to pass the exam. That’s why we also describe a strategy for assessing readiness and explain how to increase readiness if a self-check indicates that you’re not quite at a passing level yet.

• Learning style: To some extent, effective preparation means learning the material that’s covered on the exam, even if you already know the underlying subject matter very well. Some experts call this “studying to the test,” as opposed to “studying for the test.” For most people, utilizing preparation materials that best match their learning styles will help to achieve the best results. Of course, this will be tempered by budgetary and time considerations, but within those limits, the materials you choose should work for you rather than against you!

By analyzing these various elements when creating your own personal certification strategy, you’ll be forced to draw the line between enough and too much in many different ways. That’s why we walk through the various options that are available and explain when, why and how they might (or might not) find a place in your collection of preparation materials.

Because preparation materials are part of the certification market and that market is big business, it should come as no surprise that there are many different kinds of certification preparation materials available. In fact, within each category, there may be countless possibilities that you could use to prepare. Before describing some strategies to help you separate the winners from the losers within any given category, let’s first describe the most popular items in the cornucopia of preparation material categories available in today’s marketplace. We’ll cover this space pretty thoroughly, but we beg forgiveness in advance for those categories that we no doubt inadvertently omitted. (Remember, we’re talking about the most popular items, not everything under the sun.)

• Study guides: A mainstay of the certification marketplace, these books are normally hefty tomes–we often call them “doorstops”–that provide lots of background information, general concepts and exposure and ample opportunities to learn the subject matter, as well as the exam itself. Within popular certification programs (MCSE, CCNA, CCNP, CompTIA certifications and so forth), you may be confronted with two dozen or more titles to choose from in this category.

• Exam crams: As the guys who invented this category, we think we understand it pretty well. We’re pleased to report that a lot of people apparently agree that a short, focused book that sticks more or less exclusively to exam topics and sample questions makes a good preparation tool. Here again, you’ll have lots of options to choose from in this category, but a well-paired study guide and exam cram make a potent combination!

• Flash cards: Whether you buy them from a publisher or other vendor or make your own, many people find that flash cards (questions on one side, answers on the other, easy to shuffle and flip through under all kinds of conditions) make excellent preparation tools. Since they’re not terribly expensive, they can team up with a good combination of a study guide and an exam cram, or they can replace the exam cram altogether.

• Publication bundles: For more popular, multi-exam certifications, such as MCSE, A+, CCNP and so forth, many publishers offer book bundles that cover core topics and common concepts. By buying such materials in bulk, you can usually save money, but the relatively larger expenditures involved makes doing your homework before selecting a bundle even more important than for any single title.

• Instructor-led training: Classroom training is a process and an experience, as well as a source of knowledge and materials. Most experts agree that for those who can afford to make classroom training a part of their certification preparation strategy, the value of time away from work and exposure to a talented and knowledgeable instructor is hard to beat. As indicated in the “Learning Tools” column in the July issue of Certification Magazine, this option is expensive, but worth it! There are lots of options to choose from, ranging from expensive commercial training outlets and boot camps to classes at your local community college or your school district’s continuing/adult education programs.

• Online training: Online training mixes the features and benefits of classroom training with self-paced reading assignments, labs and other interactions with students, instructors and training materials. It costs less than classroom training but doesn’t usually provide as many benefits. There are numerous options to choose from, ranging from expensive commercial training outlets and educational conferences to low-cost (or even free) video-based training providers. Generally, the more interaction with a live instructor, the more you’ll pay for such training (and the more closely its benefits will match those of instructor-led training).

• Computer-based training: Computer-based training depends on downloading materials from the Internet or running them from a CD-ROM. Although the level of interactivity with such materials–and the corresponding cost–varies tremendously, these materials function as hybrids between online training and straight-out reading materials. Some offerings may even include e-mail or telephone access to an instructor, but you can expect to pay extra for this privilege. Here also, options vary widely from top-of-the-line products with lots of animation, graphics and sizzle to mostly repackaged printed materials.

• Practice tests: An essential weapon in any serious certification student’s arsenal of preparation materials, practice tests provide the best form of readiness assessment that’s generally available. As long as a practice test provides a reasonable facsimile of the real thing, if you can pass the practice test, you should be able to pass the real test too. Our favorite form of readiness assessment can be stated as: “Keep at it until you pass by a comfortable margin.” We’ve learned that the stress of the real exam can result in a drop in test scores of as much as 10 percent, so we keep at it until we’re regularly scoring 10 percent higher than the passing grade. Only experience will tell you what relationship you should strive for between practice and real exams, but once you figure that out, you’ll be able to use that information to your advantage. Even though good practice tests can cost as much as $100 to $150 each, they’re worth the money (especially for more expensive exams or when guaranteed pass plans promise that you’ll get the money back if you take the real exam and fail on your first try).

• Study games: A increasing number of vendors are packaging game-based sample questions for their customers, most often as supplementary materials with books or training packages. Whether you take these seriously or not, or you consider them more akin to flash cards or practice tests, these materials can inject a faint note of fun or entertainment into what can all too often become a dreadfully serious undertaking. Use at your own discretion!

• Audiotapes: Those who travel a lot or spend significant time behind the wheel report that audio-based training and review materials help them prepare for certification when they otherwise might not be able to pay attention to such materials. For those whose learning styles are such that hearing the material helps them absorb it, this can be a valuable addition to their arsenal of materials, as long as they can spend the time to listen and learn. Options are not as plentiful for such auditory materials, but there are still multiple vendors or packages from which to choose.

• All-in-one training packages: An extension of the publication bundle idea, these packages can include access to online or computer-based training, audiotapes, flash cards and books of all kinds. More expensive offerings sometimes come with money-back guarantees for the cost of certification exams or the cost of the materials themselves, but such bundles should be investigated carefully before spending the considerable amount of money involved.

• Marvelous miscellany: From user groups with study cells to online communities in chat rooms and mailing lists, you can often align yourself with others who are studying for the same exams at the same time you are. There is not only strength in numbers, but also a sense of shared learning, solidarity and commitment that some find inspiring and others find essential in nailing down the details and answering all the tricky questions that litter the road between the start and the end of any particular certification trail. Only you can decide if such exposure is to your benefit, but many successfully certified professionals swear by this kind of thing.

Since such groups or communities usually cost nothing to join and involve little additional cost, it’s at least worth a try. Among other things, such communities can be invaluable sources of information in helping you choose other training materials as you prepare for your certification exams. Another great source for preparation comes from Web sites such as www.examcram.com or cramsession.brainbuzz.com, which offer “question of the day” e-mails on more than 60 certification exams, along with online forums, study plans, exam reviews and much more.

We wish that for any given category we could simply provide a reliable, consistent guide to the “best of breed” for the certification preparation materials it contains. Alas, we can’t make any unfailingly good recommendations across the board, simply because no single source (or author, for that matter) is uniformly great in any particular category. Thus, we must recommend a strategy for making smart picks when choosing your certification materials:

• Ask the community: As mentioned earlier, joining a virtual certification community provides access to a lot of opinionated people, many of whom might have more knowledge or experience than you do. While you shouldn’t let this be your sole source of input when choosing certification materials, it’s not a bad source of information either. It’s especially useful if you can talk to people who’ve just gotten the certification you’re going after, so contact through virtual or real communities, friends, family, colleagues, co-workers and so forth can be incredibly valuable.

• Read reviews: One advantage of Amazon.com is its reader reviews, which can be merciless when rating materials of all kinds, particularly certification-related stuff. Read those reviews, and steer clear of anything that doesn’t garner at least 3.5 stars or better. (We prefer using ratings based on 10 reviews or more, since that’s more likely to reflect a meaningful consensus than just one or two reviews.)

• Look for editor’s picks, reading lists or other expert recommendations: If you can find recommendations from acknowledged experts in the field in which you seek certification, that’s not a bad source of input, either. These folks often know the best books and materials available, and most are objective enough to recommend the good stuff instead of shamelessly flogging only their own efforts.

• Ask an expert: One of the best benefits of instructor-led training is also easy to get in online forums and chats or at book signings. That is, if you make the effort to ask the experts for their opinions, you’ll often be able to benefit directly from the results of their knowledge and experience.

• Look the materials over: If you can get your hands on the student manuals for training or go to a bookstore or some other outlet and spend some time with certification preparation materials before you buy them, you can often decide what will work for you by investing a little time and effort. Read a page or two of the materials, take some sample questions or interact with the materials in some form or fashion. Are they clear? Interesting? Well-written? Informative? Read the index or table of contents and see if they cover what you need to know. This falls under the general heading of “an ounce of prevention,” so please try to make this a step in your purchase process no matter how you identify the materials you want to investigate further.

As a fallback strategy, we also encourage you to investigate refund policies and to buy only those items that you can return for a refund if you so choose. (This doesn’t apply to software or practice tests, alas, but will apply to most other purchases.) If you save receipts and wind up with a turkey on your hands despite your best efforts, get your money back and try again!

Given the number of categories of preparation materials we’ve just covered, we hope it’s obvious that only those with big budgets and lots of time to invest can cover a significant number of such options as they prepare for exams. In our own experience and in reports from our many readers and students, we have found that it’s rare that any certification candidate acquires even a single element from more than half the categories represented here.

That’s why we present three potential collections of materials, minimal, middle-of-the-road and top-of-the-line, that work well for us and for others who’ve successfully traveled the path from study to certification:

• The minimal set: Study guide, exam cram and practice test. For those on a tight budget who can get by with only printed material, this triumvirate will seldom cost more than $180 per topic. ($50 for a study guide, $30 for an exam cram and $100 for a practice test is a workable upper bound.) We’ve been able to hold this down to as little as $115 per topic with some serious comparison shopping. To that end, we recommend www.bookpool.com as a great source for low-cost certification books.

• Middle-of-the-road set: Study guide, exam cram, practice test and one or more of the following: online or computer-based class, audiotapes or commercial flash cards. This adds anywhere from $20 to $300 to the costs of the minimal set and probably adds at least a week to your preparation time, but it can be well worth the additional investment, especially for those who learn better through interaction or listening.

• Top-of-the-line set: Study guide, exam cram, practice test and instructor-led or online training that features instructor interaction. Specific exam prep courses, like those offered by Herb Martin at www.learnquick.com, can be an added bonus for those able to spend up to $600 a day for some serious, intense and focused exam preparation help. Expect to spend at least $3,000 per topic if you take this approach, but expect to pass your exams with relative ease as well.

No matter which combination of materials your time and budget constraints dictate you create for yourself, don’t overlook the benefits of virtual certification communities. Be it a question of the day service, the access to discussions on particularly tricky concepts or exam questions, the study plans or simply having a place to go to ask the tough questions, you’ll benefit from interaction with your virtual peers and colleagues as you work your way through whatever set of certification materials you put together for yourself.

Don’t forget to take advantage of as many sources of practice and test simulation experience as you can garner. Experience has taught us–and many others–that the desensitization to test anxiety that regular practice provides can really help boost your exam scores. Regular, focused self-assessment can help you pinpoint areas in need of further study, hands-on experience or further practice and get you ready to take that exam and pass it with a minimum of muss and fuss. That’s why so many certification preparation materials include sample questions, practice tests and question analyses and information. Make sure you use these resources to the max, then take one or more practice tests to make sure you’re ready for the real thing. Good luck as you proceed toward the certification(s) of your choice!

Ed Tittel is vice president of IT certification at iLearning.com. He can be reached at ed.tittel@ilearning.com.