9/12/2001 -- It wasn't that long ago that certification exam preparation products didn't exist at all. You either took the vendor class, or you knew the material anyhow and took your chances with the exam.

Since then, certification has become a huge boon to technical book publishing -- a myriad of test preparation tools keep springing up. In most cases, we pay the money for these products to shorten the time taken to prepare for the exams and also to improve the chances of passing that exam. However, there's a couple of shortcut approaches I would advise you not to take.

The first shortcut I feel you need to make a decision NOT to use are braindump Web sites. The word "braindump" has a variety of meanings, but in this context it means someone has written down the test questions they experienced together with their suggested answers. Sometimes these can be quite organized with a number of test takers putting their thoughts together, resulting in a fairly large pool of questions for each.

To put it simply, braindumps are cheating. I guess some people rationalize this away by declaring that certification exams often ask about obscure product features; but, at the end of the day, by using these resources you are cheating yourself and also everyone else who has or wants to hold that certification. We've seen a model for this with Microsoft's NT 4.0 MCSE exams. Unfortunately there is now a common perception that braindump sites have been used all too often by participants, so it is often felt that the certification itself is not worth as much as it used to. There have been many steps taken by Microsoft to reduce the effectiveness of these sites for Windows 2000 exams, but undoubtably some devious people will eventually find ways to get around this.

Another area that concerns me is that so many test participants seem to view Transcender exam preparation software as freeware. (This happens with other products as well, but I see it most often with Transcender.) I must say that I don't use Transcender's products myself, and I don't have any stock in their company, but these are licensed products and I feel that they should be treated as such. People who wouldn't dream of using pirate operating systems or office suites seem to have no qualms about swapping pirate versions of Transcender's offerings. I've heard people say that these products are useful exam preparation tools, and I'm assuming that people justify the piracy because of the high price of the products, but that's a pretty poor reason. A few years ago I used to get many unsolicited e-mails from people wanting me to share pirate copies of Transcender (although I'd never bought any!), but now I think people are more suspect about making this piracy known. With the completed certification in hand, we have the intention of showing the world that we're capable IT professionals (stress on the word "professional") and not pirates.

Please give some thought to your ethical situation as you prepare for your exams. You may not agree with my opinions here, but it's a good idea to at least make up your own mind on where you stand on these issues. What do you think: Am I too idealistic, or are there other areas you think need to be avoided in order to ethically prepare for exams? Let me know by posting your thoughts below.