In Brad Reese's Cisco Subnet blog, Robert Williams of CertGuard commented on the article about my recertification:
I'm sure many "professionals" in his position would have opted to take the easy road and just "study to pass"...
There are a bunch of 'study guides' or 'brain dumps' available that are direct copies of the test questions. Yes, I've seen some of them and I have a problem with them. A number of the answers that they provide are not correct, at least by my interpretation. So someone who is using a study guide will have a 'test finger print' based on the set of incorrect answers that match those in the brain dump. I think there's a relatively easy way for Cisco to make these study guides less effective and to make sure that candidates know the material.
Increase the test database to over 1000 questions and don't repeat questions for candidates. Cisco already publishes a syllabus of topics, which would be the basis for subject areas. Create ten questions for each individual subject. Make sure that a candidate's test doesn't contain a repeat question until after ten attempts. A candidate would have to know the subject or memorize many more questions than with the current test database.
With a large enough database, Cisco could publish the questions for public review and comment. This would have the byproduct of allowing comment on bad questions and improve question quality. It would even be useful to allow people to suggest questions, subject to review and acceptance by Cisco. Using this process, the question database could quickly be several thousand questions and more fully evaluate a candidate's subject knowledge.
-Terry