One thing that annoys me a lot are "software exams", where you can become a certified drone of the particular software company, typically Sage or Microsoft. They are a two-pronged attack by the software company on free software, gaining them money (because you have to pay to take their exam) and locks you into their software, since you are more likely to stay with software that you have spent money and time learning.
But they also have ridiculous questions! One of the Sage exams has the question "What is the maximum number of lines you can have on an invoice?" What?? So Sage has decided (either due to their inability to write software that allows as many invoice lines as possible, or their marketing dept. decided that it looked good in a brochure) that you can only have 99 lines on an invoice. And people have to memorise this (and a myriad of other completely pointless facts) in order to pass an exam.
Excuse me if I'm not impressed with anyone who's been stupid enough to take this exam.
1 comment:
Right you are! The theory and the ability to use it is what matters. Also it is much more important to learn the process of learning. But after that it may be important to know specific things about specific softwares. So if it's your choice to take it that's right, but if it is obligatory in an independent school, that's a bad thing. Anyway, the high costs what bugs me much more about these stupid courses/exams and the shallowness of the things to learn there...
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