California State Personnel Board Written Exam: Associate Programmer Analyst (Specialist)

This afternoon, on my way to the California State Personnel Board Testing Center to take the written exam for the Associate Programmer Analyst (Specialist) position, I watched ice fly off the top of a semi-trailer heading westward toward San Francisco. The sheets of ice, formed during transport through the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains, had melted in the warm Central Valley sunshine. Now, with every incline or bump, the sheets broke off, arced into the 65-mph winds, then dashed against the road, shattering into thousands of sparkling shards that rattled in my car's wheel wells as I drove over them. Vehicles in adjoining lanes cautiously passed the trailer as best they could.

I managed to avoid the ice and arrive early, parking at the Westfield Plaza East parking garage, eating a light lunch, reading a book to pass the time, and then walking to the Center. I waited outside with 20 other applicants as maintenance staff cleaned windows. At 12:00, a proctor unlocked the door and we filed in, taking our assigned computers (Dell Optiplex GX260's). At precisely 12:15, the proctor began reading the instructions for the exam. At 12:23, we began the three-hour computer-based, multiple-choice test.

The test consisted of 100 questions divided into three sections, each question paired with four multiple-choice answers. The software is a kiosk-style (menu-less) web browser window. The first section discussed IT questions; the second project management and database questions; the third logic and situational questions. You may check a box next to each question to indicate you'd like to review it after completing. At the end of the exam, the software generates links to these questions and those the candidate left blank. A candidate can submit the test for instant grading at any time.

Test topics included: PERT charts, Gantt charts, critical paths, flat files, primary & foreign keys, logic puzzles, algorithm-evaluation, situational questions, a customer-service question, number sequence puzzles, logical database views, batch processing, real-time processing, parallel processing, multitasking, transaction processing, transactions, records, tables, logical operators, relational operators, system development life cycle models (for example, waterfall, spiral), and so forth, and so forth.

Observations:

• The software provides a final grade--no answers, no statistics. You pass or you fail (70% cut-off).
• Don't be late--the proctor turned away one candidate who arrived at 12:30 due to parking problems.
• The proctor has no experience with the test material to clarify questions.
• Cameras record the candidates. No cheating.
• The proctor allowed me to keep a closed-container of water and a Clif Bar on the desk.
• No keyboard necessary--you're instructed to set it on top of the computer case
• You'll need the candidate ID number issued to you to log-in to the software.
• Overwhelmingly male population. Out of 20, perhaps 5 women.
• One tip: Spinners at the Westfield Plaza Mall near the Center offers parking validation if you buy a coffee.
• I finished in approximately two hours, and spent the remaining 60 minutes reviewing questions I failed to answer or marked for review. I then went through the entire test again one final time.
• The software presents a one-page candidate satisfaction survey at the end to obtain feedback prior to showing your grade.
• The exam software worked well--no bugs.

Opinions/reactions:

• A question on flat-files? Domo arigato Mr. Roboto! Take me back to the 80's.
• Coming from a computer science background I felt rusty on some of the business analyst terminology.
• The design of the web exam software seems like a throwback to the HTML of the mid-nineties. Solidly functional, but dated.
• I mis-interpreted the equality operator ('=') as the assignment operator and botched a question. x_x Too much reading of C code.
• I felt disappointment at not having the option to see which questions I missed--I'd appreciate more transparency. A few questions I had down to one of two choices and I'd like to know what the answers were. Especially the answers to the situational questions, which seem subjective. A call to the Exam Questions line (916-653-1705) revealed, It's a standard exam and we don't allow answer inspections for that.
• The URL http://www.spb.ca.gov/employment/eligible_list_disclosure.cfm on the printed results sheet given to me after the test doesn't work. The URL appears to be http://www.spb.ca.gov/jobs/exams/eligible_list_disclosure.htm.

The State ranks people based on their scores, and hires primarily out of the top three ranks.

To my surprise, I discovered that due to extra points given to veterans or career state employees. The percentages needed to reach the top two ranks are 110% and 105%! Third-rank is 100%, with each rank decreasing by 5%--fourth rank, 95%, fifth rank, 90%, and so forth. x_xI didn't achieve the perfect score necessary to reach third rank, but I'm quite content with the result I achieved.

It appears upon review that the printed results sheet given to me after the test contains a table which indicates rank one and two as 110% and 105%, but in reality rank one seems to be 95%+, rank two seems to be 90%+, and rank three 85%+.

Wishing you success on the exam.