A Word About Practicum Exams

There is a fair chance that the reason you purchased this book was to help prepare for the practicum exams on the CLP and CLE tests. Although it is easy to read that practicum exams are those in which you are required to do something as opposed to just pick the correct multiple-choice answer, it is sometimes difficult to grasp just exactly what such an exam is like. The practicum begins by presenting you with a "Business Requirements Document." You are always to pretend that you are a consultant or administrator for a fictitious company (the BRD will explain which) and that you have a task before you.

The underlying purpose of this BRD is to give you all the information you need to know in order to satisfy the requirements of the task and meet the expectations for the company. Notice the emphasis on "meet." This is a very important concept that you must keep in mind: Your role during the exam is to do exactly what needs to be done to meet the BRD and nothing else. In the real world, if you were brought in to solve a problem with DNS and you happened to notice that printing was configured all wrong, you would never spend billable time fixing the printing problem without first asking approval to do so from the customer. That same attitude must be taken here it is your job to configure the system as you are told to do so and not make arbitrary changes in other areas.

In the actual exam, it will never be necessary to demonstrate every task from every one of the objectives that exist in this book in order to satisfy the requirements, but you never know which objectives will be needed to satisfy the BRD you are presented with until you take the actual test. As a very rough rule of thumb, it is not unlikely that you will have to perform up to 75% of the tasks covered here in order to successfully complete the practicum. You must study for all topic areas, though, in order to be fully prepared.

A FAQ on "practical training" can be found at http://practicum.novell.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=FAQ&file=index, and the home page on this technology can be found at http://practicum.novell.com/index.php.