protips

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This site lists the protips that we shared with students during our courses

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After the On-Site test on TestDome we always get questions and comments. They vary a bit but I’ll let the poigant Christoper Evans of Winter 20 Amsterdam ask the question. Here is is his question:

Hey guys, can I please ask you for some tips on how to get better that timed test assignments?

There are a few things I struggled with on the test this week:

1) I didn’t understand some of the test wording, so I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to return.

2) I don’t know much about classes outside of React.

And, related but separate:3) Where can I practice more/get general purpose tips on how to cope with these sorts of challenges?

Well - let me be the first to say that these types of tests are not very representative for if someone is a good developer or not.

It does, however, shows really well if someone is great at taking tests in a browser environment or not - and for some reason most companies on the planet seems to use that as their measuring for screening developers in the interview process.

Herein lies the crux; i can scream myself blue (and I have) about how stupid and non-representative these types of test are. Some companies that you will interview with are using these types of tests and hence it’s a good thing to try out.

At least in Sweden, it is more common to get a more real life task

So with that out of the way, I can now calm myself down and answer the questions… I hope

I don’t understand the questions

This is sadly part of the main problem with a platform-based test; there’s no way to get clarifications.

That said; most test tools have a way for you to write the code and the run some kind of testing tool to see if you are going the right way. Like unit tests that will correct your code. Quite opposite from how we do weekend test which are more focused on the qualitative parts, hence our focus on the comments and feedback.

If I get a test suite that will validate my test, the first thing I do is to … run the tests. Typically I can figure out (more about) what is expected of me by getting the errors.

If possible I also try to scope down the problem, tackling one failing test a the time is another benefit of this. This makes the problem easier to understand and start to solve.

If we really don’t understand what it means (The test says: make an anti-corruption layer in the reducer and you go eeeeh?!) we can always look up the wordings and see what it means. This of course takes away valueable problem-solving time but is also needed to progress.

If the platform allows for it - solve the other tasks first and then go back to the ones where you don’t understood the words. You might get hints from other parts.

I don’t know anything about X

Well this is a bit of a bummer. But it happens. If this is for every question you get it was not meant to be. This test is not well suited for your skills.

If it happens for a single test … leave it and move on.

Regarding classes outside React, which was the original question, read up a bit here and here

Where can I practice more/get general purpose tips

First of all, just about all of these platforms have “practice test” - they are a good start to get to know that particular platform; where are you supposed to write the code, how can you run the code, where is the output shown, what kind of help you can you get in the platform etc.

Secondly these test are typically much easier than the actual test, but can still be useful and provide you with some learning experience.

Other than that - here’s a list of links to places we found useful to practice online platforms. Chances are that one of these will pop up as a platform you might have to use

Search for example coding tests

Another great tip is to ask someone in Sales about pointers to other platforms that has been used, or example code tests that we have got from clients.