Anyone have experience with MATLAB Associate Exam?

Next week I'll be taking the exam administered by MathWorks to try to earn a MATLAB Associate Certification. Does anyone have experience with this exam? What should I expect? Is it multiple choice or do I have to perform various tasks in MATLAB? How can I assure I'll be prepared? I'm mostly a beginner, but I've taken the online MATLAB Fundamentals Training course.

Thanks.

[Dina Yagodich]

The test is by computer -- 50 multiple choice questions and you have 90 minutes to finish. I did it in 80 minutes, but I did the test twice (and found one mistake) -- you can go back and review the test questions and your answers before submitting it. The test is immediately scored as pass fail, although the actual score was not given.

I found some questions really easy and others were ones I hadn't 100% mastered. I would go through the fundamentals course twice as well as review the summary pages with the course. The questions covered the material presented there.

I found really understanding the 5 sample questions helped a lot. I went through the wrong answers to see what they would produce, and it helped clear up some misunderstandings I had (question 1 in particular).

[Sunil]

How did you prepare for the exam?

[Nived N]

is there any exam fee for this associate certification exam

[Shruti Padgaonkar]

Hi,

I am in the same situation today, I have completed the Fundamentals Course and am planning to give the Associate Exam. The course sets the tone for the basics of Matlab - however if you already have had some experience in programming the later chapters will show some similarities in syntax.

There are practice questions available online and I found them particularly helpful in applying the theory that is learnt in the course. It has also been mentioned in the forums that the questions found in Fundamentals course are similar to ones tested in the exam - if anyone can confirm this it would be helpful!

Answer 1

[Sean de Wolski]

Haven't taken it, but if I was to, here's how I would prepare:

• Play CODY
• Answer HG questions here (since CODY doesn't prep for HG)

[Clark]

What's HG stand for?

[Wayne King]

handle graphics

[Clark]

Thanks!

[Anirudh Talluri]

What's CODY??

[Rik]

@Anirudh Talluri If you click on the arrow next to 'MATLAB Central' it is the 4th option. It will also be the top result on Google.

Cody is a coding challenge platform.

Answer 2

[Clark]

I haven't gotten results from this exam yet, but it was my perception that doing Cody problems isn't necessary at all. If you've taken the MATLAB fundamentals course (I took the online self-paced version), the exam is all straight from there. I just wasn't sure if I would require a ton of practice and extrapolation on those lessons to be prepared for the exam.

[Clark]

And I passed.

[Rakshit Kothari]

Hi, I have been coding on MATlab since the past 3 years and I am set to take the associate exam soon. I don't know if CODY is required but I find it very simple and straight forward. I even saw the test questions and they seemed pretty ok.

Is there anyway to prepare for this exam other than CODY? I have the MATlab essentials PDF with me (I haven't taken the course) and I have read it through - will that be enough?

Also, what type of questions do they ask? I mean, are they multiple choice questions, Written answer question etc?

Do let me know, i'm kind of the edge of my seat here!

[Clark]

Doing CODY problems actually WILL NOT help you on this exam, though I'm sure it couldn't hurt. CODY problems are way too advanced, and focus more on your understanding of how to efficiently write code. The MATLAB associates exam is actually not like that at all. Instead, it tests you on just understanding the workspace and syntax. I took the MATLAB essentials class online (went through the tutorial twice). The essentials class teaches you EVERYTHING you need to know for the exam.

Questions are mostly multiple choice, with some questions where you select multiple answers. For example (I'm just making these up), there might be a question like:

Which of the following lines of code will produce an error:

1. ones(3)*zeros(2,3)
2. ones(3)*zeros(3,2)
3. ones(2)*zeros(2,3)

If you've been using MATLAB for 3 years and read the MATLAB essentials PDF, the exam should be a breeze.

[Santosh Kumar Choudhary]

1

Answer 3

[Swapnali Gujar]

Thanks for the information about this certification. If possible, could you please put forward some sample questions from the test? I am preparing for the exam using MATLAB help that comes along with the matlab installation, and I am preparing according to the topic that they have listed as a syllabus for this exam on mathworks website. Will that be sufficient ? I am also solving problems on Cody here as a practice.

[David Verrelli]

http://au.mathworks.com/services/training/certification/exam-questions.html

Answer 4

[Leo S]

I took the exam recently and did not pass.

I did learn by doing the Fundamentals and Onramp Courses twice, as well as doing the "Programming Techniques" and "Visualization" courses. Furthermore, I created Screenshots all the way into all courses and examined the PDFs seperately. I also used them to create mindmaps in order to gain a comprehensive view of all different data types and their uses.

I found that the exam did not have much to do with the Fundamentals course. I saw people writing, that the problems were literally the same as in the Fundamentals course and this is not true. ZERO questions from the Fundamentals course were in my test. There were some problems, which could be solved by using knowledge obtained from the Fundamentals course, but in my estimate, it could only carry you through ~30 % of the test. The test included commands, which were not introduced in the Fundamentals course and weird special cases of using "surf" for example (very weird vector compositions, not at all how it was introduced). You will also only get a "failed" notification and no feedback at all. So you don't even have an idea of how to improve.

I started CODY today and it is fun and will certainly teach you well, but it doesn't adress anything in the direction of questions from the MATLAB test, so I will not continue with it for preparation. I will certainly do the test again and I am determined to pass this time around. My recommendation: do not underestimate it and really try to apply the MATLAB commands on very weird cases/ "test the limits" of the commands

[John Alex Agbo]

Thanks. This will be very usefull. can you pls share with me some of your resources.

[Tama Langford]

This was my experience too, just did the test and a substantial number of the questions relate to things not even introduced in the MATLAB Fundamentals course. I note that most of the comments saying otherwise are from several years ago, around 2013 and such. My assumption is that they updated the course material but not the exam, such that they no longer match each other. Personally, I sent a demand for a refund or for a free retake if they have a version of the exam that actually covers the material covered by the course content. I have no intention of simply paying $600 over and over again to retake an exam for which there is insufficient/ unsuitable course material to prepare with.

[Narenprasad Selvamurugan]

you guys pay 600$? for me its around 53$

Answer 5

[Manuel Cornejo Muñoz]

Hi everyone

Is it possible/advisable to go directly to MATLAB certified professional exam?

Answer 6

[Dina Yagodich]

No, I believe you must take the Associate first. From their site:

Required:

• Certified MATLAB Associate credential

The following training courses cover all the information needed to obtain the Certified MATLAB Professional credential:

MATLAB for Data Processing and Visualization

MATLAB Programming Techniques

Building Interactive Applications in MATLAB