Yes, I wrote and passed the Adobe Photoshop CS Certification exam on September 5. No I won’t tell you the questions I was asked. To be honest, I don’t really remember them specifically Do you want the honest truth? The test is hard. I’m glad I studied as much as I did. I scored in the 80’s. Several sections I scored perfectly on, and in others, I passed barely or outright failed. This was the first certification exam I have written in a test center environment and did not know what to expect.

Apple certification test preparation tool is absolutely essential. Just don’t take it so often that you memorize the answers. You have to really know the reasoning behind the answers. The questions in the test preparation tool are worded very differently from the test questions in the formal exam. Sometimes they are backwards - for example - one of the exam aid questions had to do with specifically saying what would cause a layer comp to generate an alert triangle. On the test, the question could be saying which item from below would NOT cause an alert triangle. So you have to read the questions carefully.

I used 2 tests - one from Boson and one from ExamAids. The Boson one asked questions that were too “easy/obvious” - the ExamAids was the other extreme. I think by scoring high on both saved my butt. I really kept being thrown on the formal test in terms of how the questions were asked - I felt like they were in “marketing speak”. So re-read the questions outloud (quietly) and if needed try to rephrase them in your head to make sure you really understand what they are asking. Don’t just quickly pick the most seemingly obvious one - some of them are tricks.

The additional plus with the examaids are that they tell you what areas you are weak in.

Do go to AdobeElementK and invest $40 in online training in Photoshop. It is official Adobe training and I swear that every question I was asked was in one of those videos. Just be prepared to fall asleep while watching them - the woman’s voice puts you in a lull everytime. Be able to answer the questions at the end of each video without cheating and clicking on the answer and then thinking “yeah that’s right”.

Do work through the Adobe Classroom in a book series. Be able to answer the questions at the end of each chapter. It builds on the video stuff you nodded off on.

Do buy a good book like Deke McClelland’s One on One - or get your hands on the Total Training Series by Deke. On the day before the test - I kicked back and re-watched the color management sections over and over till I knew the differences between all those color profiles cold. Unlike the Adobe series, Deke is funny and engaging and you won’t fall asleep.

The One on One book helped me because at the end of each chapter was another section on terms and meanings and his book is thorough.

Good luck if you go for it. I learned so much about Photoshop Certification that it has become a completely different experience for me everytime I use it now and the sense of accomplishment I received when I hit the “score” button af the end of the test and knew immediately that I passed was amazing and made it all worthwhile.