PhilNITS is fast approaching…
Alright, the PhilNITS exam for the first half of this year will be on March 27, 2011. Before, I was not really the type who wants to join trainings but with the influence of sir Loy and passing the PhilNITS exam, my outlook changed about the subject. I actually still want to believe that at the end of March, all of ACTION Batch 16 Cebu (my Batch! ^_^) will all be PhilNITS FE certified. And I would actually give my all to explain and share my ideas about the topics I know.
How can you actually help people when the schedule is actually not possible? We are actually doing so many things, with so little time. With these, we actually have to alot time if we are serious about something, right? Doing past exams, etc., we do a lot of practice exams, but honestly, I think this does not help that much. This is because majority of exam (practice) questions that are given in trainings actually repeat themselves. This may be because people might know how to solve them after numerous encounters. But with the small time we were given during reviews, I think what most people do is to actually just memorize the answers to these questions. Many times, I asked people (people in general and in trainings that I joined) how they got the answers, but one common reply that I receive was that it was the answer of the previous exam question or that was what the answer key gave us.
These kind of reasoning actually makes me sad. PhilNITS is actually covering a very broad scope. If you want people to learn and improve their chances of passing, I think the trainer should always be the one to set the example. Make people understand the benefits of the exam. I always look up to Mr Aloysius Torres for really being one of the best people to make these things happen. We actually don’t know everything, but sometimes, showing everybody how to actually solve a problem or apply techniques of elimination on exams, can be very helpful. I am actually not the type who can understand everything in the book, but for me, it is very helpful when a friend or someone you know show you how to solve it. I don’t actually know everything so I cannot explain everything. But I want to share to them my way of thinking. Because most exam questions actually have 4 choices. Most of the time, one or two of these four choices are REALLY WAY OFF the question so that gives you 50-75% of chance of getting the correct answer. Next, with your knowledge, (you may not know all the terms in the choices, but you know some of them), and instead of finding the correct answer, you can actually cross out the wrong answers. And eventually this process will lead you to the correct one. This is the concept of elimination.
Taking exams also comes with confidence. Sometimes, we do self evaluation by marking topics and problems that we are confident about or those we are not confident about. But that shouldn’t stop there, during preparation, you should take note of the topics that you have problems solving. These topics become the focus of your preparation. PhilNITS is actually very difficult and the topics are too broad, so take this chance to focus on the parts that you don’t have knowledge about. And in turn, after knowing a part of these topics, your confidence regarding these topics will eventually increase.
For you who might be preparing for the exam. TO get yourself familiar with the style and type of questions that comes out during the FE exam, there’s no better place to get review materials than the actual website of PhilNITS itself. You can download modules in this link. And recent exams can be found here.
For all of you guys taking the exam this March, God bless. Take this exam not only because it will help you give yourself a certification. But also, to increase the passing rate for your city, and of the Philippines as a whole. We actually don’t know that PhilNITS (JITSE) passing rate is actually a benchmark that other countries look at in order to give themselves an idea of the skills of IT engineers for a specific country.
God bless and Good luck!
