30 April 2014

More Adobe Certification

Everything Adobe is Creative Cloud now and it was time for me to recertify as an ACE/ACI. As usual, I procrastinated until almost the end. After the tests are available, you have 90 days to recertify. If you don't, you have to take the full proctored test again. Having passed it once, I never want to do it again. With the CC versions, it's hard because updates come automatically and if your version of CC isn't the latest one, it won't have the new features. It's hard to know unless you really look into it. The lab where I'm teaching Illustrator now is running CC, but it's not the latest build, so there were tools and features I didn't know. 

So I had them install the latest version, did some quick practicing and studying, then took the test with only a couple of days to spare. As usual, it was awful and I was down to the last few minutes as I worked on the last questions. The questions were obscure and difficult, some answers were poorly worded, and at least one question was based on a false premise, so how could I find a correct answer for that? I was told once by someone at Adobe that the people that write the exams don't actually use the software, and each time I take a test, I am convinced of that more and more. But I did pass and am now up to date as an Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor in both Illustrator and Photoshop. For now.