This course teaches you the standards and guidelines for developing items for AWS Certification exams. It outlines the overall exam development process; defines your role in the process; identifies valid item types and their components; identifies and defines item-writing standards, guidelines, and best practices; and provides guidance for validating and defending exam items.
Course level: Intermediate
Duration: 150 minutes
Activities
This course includes presentations and assessments.
Course objectives
In this course, you will learn to:
- Author psychometrically sound, legally defensible exam items (questions)
- Identify cognitive levels and understand their relevance to exam objective
- Author items that align to the appropriate exam level and cognitive level
- Author items that align to the appropriate job role
- Validate the technical accuracy of exam items Intended audience
This course is intended for:
- AWS technical subject matter experts
- AWS Certification Exam Development program managers
- AWS Certification Practice Exams program managers
- AWS Certification technical architects
Prerequisites
We recommend that attendees of this course have:
- A current, valid AWS certification
- A minimum of two years of hands-on experience designing solutions, developing and deploying applications, and running or managing workloads on the AWS Cloud
Course outline
Module 1: Introduction
Module 2: Certification Fundamentals
- Exam security
- Overview of the exam development process
- The minimally qualified candidate (MQC)
- The content outline
- The exam guide
Module 3: Standard Certification Considerations
- Introduction
- Characteristics of an effective exam
- Characteristics of an effective item
- Components of an item
- Acceptable item types
- Specific guidelines for item elements
- Effective items:
- Deep dive
- Fairness
Module 4: Cognitive Complexity and Job Roles
- Introduction to cognitive complexity
- Cognitive complexity by exam level
- Writing items for roles
Module 5: General Guidelines and Best Practices
- Introduction
- Question structure
- Response options
- Multiple-response item stems
- Items about cost
- Subjective qualifiers
- Memorization
- AWS focus
- Portraying AWS in a negative light
- Cues for keys
- Trick questions
- Testing, not teaching
Module 6: Getting Started (4 slides)
- Considerations
- Conclusion
