Exam Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) i-Accelerate Exam(1D0-475) Certification, Vendor Master CIW Administrator, ProsoftTraining.com Status Live Reviewer's Rating "Overall a fair exam...You'll need the official Prosoft curriculum to pass." Test Information 60 multiple-choice questions, Must score 75 percent overall and 70 percent in each section to pass, $125 (U.S.). Who Should Take This Exam? MCSEs, CNEs or those Intel certified who want to add a Web administration title to their roster of certs. Test Objectives Click here

Luckily, many certification vendors are starting to catch on to this predicament. Instead of making us all start from scratch, they're creating "fast tracks" that let certifications previously earned by other vendors count toward a candidate's progress. One such certification is ProsoftTraining.com's Master Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) Administrator. For those of us already Microsoft or Novell certified, obtaining this title is as easy as passing the CIW Foundations exam and a fast-track i-Accelerate exam, instead of the normal four exams needed for this title. (Click here for more info on the exact qualifications needed for this exam.)

As I am already Microsoft and Novell certified (many times over, in fact), I decided to go for the Master CIW Administrator title. And since I already passed the Foundations exam in my pursuit of my CIW trainer and Master CIW Designer certification, all I needed to do was pass the i-Accelerate exam.

Following is more about this exam and what you'll need to do to pass it.

Exam Facts and Scoring
The CIW i-Accelerate exam (1D0-475) has 60 multiple-choice questions and costs $125 (U.S.). Each multiple-choice question has four possible answers, one of which is correct. The passing score is a 75 percent, meaning that a candidate must answer 45 questions correctly overall. However, note that the exam is divided into three modules: Server Administration, Internetworking and Security (there are 18 questions on Server Administration, 18 on Internetworking and 24 on HTML Fundamentals). Aside from the 75 percent overall pass rate, to pass this exam a candidate must also achieve at least 70 percent on each module! Therefore, I needed at least 13 correct on the Server Administration questions, 13 correct on the Internetworking questions and 17 correct on the Security questions. Prosoft is considering removing the section passing scores in the future (as they did recently with the Foundations exam). However, at this point in time, the section passing scores still apply to the i-Accelerate exam. For me, the section pass scores are the most nerve racking part of this and several other Prosoft CIW exams. In theory, you can have an overall score of 85 percent or even 90 percent and still fail the exam. That I find ridiculous: If you get 45 correct out of 60 questions you should pass. But since I don't grade this thing, I guess we'll have to move on.

Strategies for Passing
The i-Accelerate exam is a melded version of Prosoft's Server Administrator, Internetworking and Security exams. I took it a few weeks ago and passed it with no problem in 25 minutes, but that doesn't mean this exam is easy! I found it to be a tricky exam. Be sure you study the material related to the test objectives with equal emphasis (click here to access these objectives via the official exam guide). All material is fair game -- watch out for the obscure as you prepare.

In my option, there are four keys to passing the i-Accelerate exam:

1. It's a Linux Thing. You must know basic Linux/UNIX commands and command syntax to pass the Server Administration portion. You must also know basic Linux administrative tasks, especially on the Apache Web server. You will need to know basic NT administrative tasks, but it is assumed that an MCSE will have knowledge of these tasks. Basic NT is not tested heavily. The 18 questions that focus on Server Administration revolve around Linux. CNEs might be at a disadvantage here if they do not have an NT background; NetWare’s Web server is not discussed or tested on in the CIW curriculum.
2. Know Enough about IPv6 To Win a Trivia Contest. The 18 Internetworking questions are heavily weighted on IPv6 issues. This is also the case on the CIW Internetworking Exam 1D0-460. Prosoft seems almost obsessed with obscure facts about IPv6. The majority of the published test objectives on internetworking discuss IPv6 issues, including header extensions, address architecture, header components, dual-stack transitioning, and ICMPv6. SNMP is a big part of the Internetworking class but is not tested on heavily. That seems quite unusual to me, in as much as SNMP is widely used on IP networks today while IPv6 is in an early stage of deployment. I was aware of this lack of balance and went into the i-Accelerate exam looking for 12 to 14 questions on IPv6. I was not disappointed. With the section score requirements, this is where you can easily fail this exam.
3. Be Hacker Aware. The section with the most questions is the Security section, and here, the hacker knowledge expected of a Master CIW is explored. You're expected to know the basic kinds of hacker attacks, which include: brute force, bug-based, back door, man in the middle, smurf, SYN flood, spoofing, session hijacking, distributed denial of services and Tribe Flood network 2000, key logging, trap doors, root kits, buffer overflows, Trojans, and illicit server infections. As a Master CIW Administrator, you must also be aware of the various kinds of firewall and firewall technologies and where they map on the OSI and DOD models. Additionally, you must know what the jobs of a security auditor are. This section of the test was the most challenging for me because of the breadth of knowledge that is tested. There are approximately 14 "Measured Skills" on each of the Server Administration and Internetworking sections. On the Security section, there are approximately 42 "Measured Skills" -- get ready to really study here.
4. Get the Materials. In order to really know the material that is presented on the i-Accelerate exam, you'll need to read through the official Prosoft curriculum for the Server Administration test, Internetworking test and Security test. You do not need to necessarily sit an instructor-lead course, but as the i-Accelerate exam is mapped to the official Prosoft Server Administration, Internetworking and Security curriculum, passing it without the official curriculum will be difficult. Prosoft has just released self-study products for their exams -- find out more by clicking here.

Final Impressions
My overall impression of this exam is that it's a good test if you prepare using the official curriculum and you are aware of the ridiculous emphasis that Prosoft puts on obscure IPv6 issues. Other than that, the majority of questions on the i-Accelerate are fact-based and relatively easy. One other thing annoys me about this test: Since this test is designed for MCSEs and CNEs, it would be nice to affirm that those taking it have some basic knowledge of NT/2000 and/or NetWare. There are few questions that address basic NT administrative tasks and none whatsoever on NetWare or Windows 2000. If the test is designed for CNEs, make it relative to the NetWare community. Microsoft and UNIX are not the only two vendors on the market. Arguably, NetWare is declining, but it's not dead -- at least not yet!

Having said all that, I found the test overall to be as advertised. I am glad I took the i-Accelerate exam, and earned the Master CIW Administrator certification, since it has added a little more to my IT toolbelt and validates that I possess Web-based administration skills. For those interested in leveraging their vendor certifications in the growing Internet community, the i-Accelerate is worth considering. The IT world keeps expanding; we might as well expand with it. Ride the roller coaster and enjoy.