How to practice for an Adobe certification exam

Rereading your notes is the habit most students report. It feels productive, but it's one of the weakest ways to study. [1]

Test yourself instead

Practice testing and spaced practice rate high. [1] People who restudy a passage do better on a test five minutes later, but people who take recall tests do better two days and a week later, and restudying leaves them feeling more confident than they should be. [2]

If you change one thing, make it this: cover the options and say your answer before you read them. A first practice test that asks for recall gives a bigger benefit than one that asks you to pick the answer out of a list. [3] For an Adobe exam I'd do this on every scenario question, because that's where a plausible wrong option does the most damage.

A right answer for the wrong reason is still a gap, so read the explanation for every question, the ones you got right included. Feedback raises the share of correct answers on a later test and cuts the wrong options people repeat. [4] Feedback that explains the answer beats feedback that only gives the correct answer, on new questions two days later. [5]

A day and a half to three days: that's the best gap between study sessions when your test is a week after the last one. [6]

Change an answer when a second read of the scenario turns up a fact you missed. Most answer changes go from wrong to right, and most students who change answers raise their scores. [7]

Unscored questions

Adobe exams can include unscored questions on top of the scored ones. You can't tell them apart, and they're mixed through the exam. They use the same time limit but don't count toward your score. [8] So treat every question as if it counts.

The Adobe Marketo Engage Business Practitioner Professional exam, AD0-E561, has a passing score of 31/50 and a time limit of 1 hour 40 minutes. [9]

The AD0-E561 guide gives you a Check it task for every objective, so you try each one in your own instance.

References

1. Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology | PubMed | pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26173288/

2. Test-enhanced learning: taking memory tests improves long-term retention | PubMed | pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16507066/

3. The effect of testing versus restudy on retention: a meta-analytic review of the testing effect | PubMed | pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25150680/

4. Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing | Memory & Cognition | link.springer.com. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/MC.36.3.604

5. Explanation Feedback Is Better than Correct Answer Feedback for Promoting Transfer of Learning | ERIC | eric.ed.gov. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1007933

6. Spacing effects in learning: a temporal ridgeline of optimal retention | PubMed | pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19076480/

7. Staying with Initial Answers on Objective Tests: Is It a Myth? | ERIC | eric.ed.gov. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ307553

8. Frequently Asked Questions | Adobe Certification, Certification FAQ | certification.adobe.com. https://certification.adobe.com/support/faq?tab=faq3

9. Adobe Marketo Engage Business Practitioner Professional | Adobe Certification | certification.adobe.com. https://certification.adobe.com/certification/business-practitioner-professional3/595

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