Comments on: How to Become an InDesign ACE

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:05:22 +0000

i just took the adobe indesign cs3 exam and flunked (i got 51%) and i’m pretty miffed about it. unlike klaus i am not a veteran id3 user - i’ve only been using it for the past few months - but i studied extensively for the test. to prepare for the exam i went through the “adobe indesign cs3 classroom in a book” from cover to cover doing all of the exercises that were described as well as studying the questions and answers at the end of each chapter. in addition i studied the “video training book adobe indesign cs3 with david blatner” and i downloaded 150 practice test questions from “pass-guaranteed.com”. i took these practice questions and made flash cards from them which i memorized completely before taking the exam. unfortunately very few of the question from the practice test appeared on the exam so i can’t recommend “pass-guarantee.com”. if anyone here has any helpful suggestions or links i’d love to see them. i’m determined to pass this thing and i’m looking for all the help i can’t get. thanks!

By: InDesignSecrets » Blog Archive » Crazy InDesign CS3 ACE Practice Questions

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:14:25 +0000

[...] Answers to Some CS3 eSeminar Questions by David Blatner Copy-and-Paste vs. Place by Michael Murphy How to Become an InDesign ACE by Anne-Marie Opening Microsoft Publisher Files in InDesign by David [...]

By: David W. Shelton

David W. Shelton — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:54:16 +0000

Klaus is quite right - the CS3 InDesign test is skewed toward the interactivity of the application, and I got the exact same score he did - a 56%. I realized halfway through that I wouldn’t pass. And like him, I’ve been a heavy user of InDesign since version 2.0 - six YEARS! And I didn’t pass. Argh! The Photoshop ACE test was much easier, though.

By: Neal Gardner

Neal Gardner — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:31:58 +0000

i just passed the InDesign CS3 recertification exam. It was much more difficult than CS2 as many of the questions dealt with the lesser-used features (interactive buttons?). Although I passed, my score was almost 20 points lower than when I took the CS2 exam. Note: i’ve been an ID user since 2002 and i’m always amazed by how much the product evolves at each new version.

By: ~ekim

~ekim — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:39:57 +0000

In all How many employers actually look for this? anyone know. Or are you taking it for the sake of takign it?

By: Klaus Nordby

Klaus Nordby — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:56:18 +0000

Thanks for your sympathies, Anne-Marie! Yes, AFAIK it’s only the ID CS3 which is just out (adobe.com is still hiding the ID CS3 Exam Guide, I had to email Tim Cole to get hold of a copy!), not yet PS CS3. I’m planning on taking the PS one also this winter/spring — heavy sigh! I’m now waiting for David’s ID CS Beyond The Basics course at lynda.com, and hope that will fill in some of my blanks. But I must clearly study the manual more — and actually use features like XML (grrr!) and Book (acceptable).

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:37:37 +0000

Klaus, argh! My sympathies … how aggravating!

Didn’t they just recently release the CS3 ACE tests? Maybe they’ve rewritten them to make them even *more* difficult. Yikes!

In my post, when I said it was “relatively easy,” I was comparing it to the other ACE tests for other programs I’ve taken. I could just imagine the horrific nature of the Photoshop test about now …

By: Klaus Nordby

Klaus Nordby — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:08:22 +0000

I took the ACE for IDCS3 two days ago — and flunked! I got 56% of a needed 66%. But what’s 100% is my agreement with David here: many parts of this exam “focus on extremely obscure aspects of features or completely irrelevant aspects of InDesign.”

Very many of the questions could be answered by a “Rainman” type of savant-person — one who had a great memory of every little exact detail in the manual and the menus, but no conceptual, abstract *grasp* of the what actual, real-world InDesign work consists of. I’ve used ID intensively for every version since 1.5, so that’s more than seven years, and like to think I can handle the program pretty well (and related issues, like pre-press) in most respects — and yet I flunked. It will be somewhat of a chore to take it again, now that I know how annoying many of the questions can be. I will re-take it, after more studies in my weak areas — but I have a much lower opinion now of what kind of real-world competence the ACE actually *proves* anyone to possess.

By: Richarde

Richarde — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:58:33 +0000

I am looking at doing the InDesign ACE course and wondered if you could recommend any reading material (other than the ones you have mentioned above..) to aid with the study or have any tips for studying up..?

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:57:03 +0000

Brian, it all depends on what you mean by easy. The questions are not complex or complicated — that is, in my experience, they don’t make you really think through a problem. It’s more like you either know the answer or not. The hard thinking I had to do was more like, “What on earth was the person thinking when they wrote this? What could they possibly mean by this question that has more than one good answer?”

I just read a link about another kind of InDesign testing which was kind of interesting.