Advice on the Practical Aspects of RB109 Written Assessment

By writing this post, I hope to share some small bits of advice on taking the written portion of the RB109 assessment. As of writing this, I’ve passed the written portion and am studying for the interview.

This is not a study guide. Launch School and the blog contributors have that covered. Prepare the best you can, in the ways that help you the most, and get yourself to the point where you would be shocked to not ace the exam.

Again, I want to stress just how helpful the study guide was in its entirety. Watch every video. Read every blog post. Every link contains at least one gem that could be the difference between passing and ‘not yet’-ing. In fact, while every post was helpful (I would consider Srđan’s as absolutely essential), I can point to one particular gem that was the difference-maker for me. It came from Juliette’s post, and it’s my first piece of advice.

BEFORE THE TEST DAY

Use the study guide and study group sessions to anticipate what some of the questions will ask, and make an answer bank of pre-written answers in markdown format that you can copy, paste, and fill in specifics.

To help emphasize this point, I will say that I “knew that I knew” the answers to every question but one. I flowed through the exam confidently, and spent very little time actually pondering, as opposed to just interpreting questions and giving answers.

I mention that because I took this piece of advice (Thanks, Juliette and Gabe!), and even then it took me 2h 45m to finish answering the questions. That’s over 90% of the allotted time spent actively reading and writing, with very little time spent “thinking.” When I was done I had time to lightly peruse only about six questions. I know for a fact that if I didn’t have a bank of pre-written answers, I wouldn’t have been able to finish in time.

Not only are whole answers helpful, but even snippets can shave valuable seconds/minutes. The example Juliette gives is a wonderful place to start.

Practice typing in markdown format

Per William’s advice, I practiced breaking down code in Boostnote. Some of my study partners use Bear. I’m so glad I had this practice. Reaching that pinky up to the backtick was something I wasn’t used to, and having to get used to that during the test would have been a waste of time and an unnecessary addition to my already elevated stress level.

Find and connect a second monitor

While not as essential as the first two, I was very thankful to have the extra space. In addition to the Launch School test window, I had a window with all the Ruby-doc highlights pre-navigated, my answer bank, my terminal, a pre-saved Sublime window ready for running test code, and a small timer. I used every one of these at one point during the test. I wish I would have had my markdown app open as well, but I’ll get to that later.

ON TEST DAY, BEFORE THE TEST

Three hours is a long time!

First and foremost, make sure you have that solid block distraction-free. Then, make sure you’re ready for it:

• Schedule your test for your brain’s favorite uninterrupted time of day.
• Eat.
• Use the bathroom.
• Make sure your computer, mouse, and keyboard are charged or plugged in.
• Set your devices to Do-Not-Disturb.
• Drink enough coffee to wake yourself up, but be careful. There’s probably already plenty of adrenaline to do that.
• Get in the zone. Listen to calming or confidence-building music, stretch, review your notes, solve a code problem, whatever. You do you.

Set your timer(s)

More on this in the next section, but make sure they’re set now.

DURING THE TEST

Click START, then stop

I know, I know… Time…

But clicking that start button feels like the opening kick of a big game, and that adrenaline surge probably isn’t your friend. So start your pre-set timer(s), click start, take your hands off the keyboard, close your eyes, and take at least one deep breath. You’ll be glad you did.

Trust your timers, but they’re not in charge

One of my study partners ran an overall timer and a per-question timer. That worked great for him. I tried that, but as soon as one of my questions took too long I started getting distracted by how it would affect my timekeeping, so I dropped the per-question timer. It probably didn’t help that my per-question timer was on my phone, so it sounded an alarm. That wasn’t cool.

If I had to do it again, and on future written assessments, I would probably use the following strategy:

• One overall timer set to 2h 40m, to make sure I had review time.
• One strategic block timer, based on the number of questions and allotted time. For RB109, I would have set it for 70 minutes. That’s 10 questions at 7 minutes a question. That way I could chart my progress generally, without being thrown off-pace by an unusually long or short answer. Once that went off, I would start it one more time.

What do I mean “they’re not in charge?”

The answers take very different amounts of time to answer. At the rate of my first few questions, I was way over time. But then I hit a few questions with very quick answers, thanks to my answer bank, and I was right back on track. So if you do set a per-question timer, remember that going over is sometimes unavoidable and manage your panic accordingly. By which I mean don’t panic.

Write your answers in your markdown note app, and then copy them to the test

This is why I wish I had mine open during the test. Launch School’s answer boxes don’t convert your input to markdown until you submit your answer. Also, if you copy-paste from a previous answer to apply it to a different answer, all of the backticks disappear, and you have to go through the answer and put them back in.

This can make for some pretty scary results if you happen to click save answer and suddenly 2/3 of your answer looks like this because you dropped a back tick somewhere.

Because of this, I plan and recommend to write the answers out in your markdown app, so you have realtime feedback as to their formatting. Once you’re done, copy the whole answer and paste it in the Launch School answer window. Of course, make sure you’re copying all of your answer.

One other advantage is that Boostnote, and probably the others, auto-balances your input, as opposed to having to type both opening and closing backticks, parentheses, brackets, etc. Small detail, but if you’re used to pressing one and getting two, you might as well rock that way during the assessment.

Review your first three questions

No matter how confident you feel about them, or how good you feel at the end, re-read your first three questions and answers just to make sure that you didn’t make a nervous mistake while you were still settling in to the flow of the assessment.

DISCLAIMER

I make a big deal about time in this post. That’s not because the time given is unfair or there’s not enough. In fact, I think the tight time allowance is part of what makes this assessment fair. Either you know your stuff or you don’t. I hope this post doesn’t make you feel stressed about the time.

Well, maybe a little bit stressed. I’m actually writing this because I very nearly didn’t prepare enough. I didn’t make an answer bank as Juliette suggested until the day before, after hearing first-hand how vital it was. Also, I had to wait an extra half-hour to start because my mouse was nearly dead when I first sat down. Thank goodness I checked.

Ideally, this post inspires and guides you to prepare so well that there’s no way you could receive a “not yet,” and if you do, it’s not because your mouse died on Question 8.