Some Questions regarding preparation for CLAD

[JaviRome]

Hello folks,

This is my first message in the forum, so I take advantage of this to salute you all,

I need to prepare for CLAD in a very few time, it has to be before January 8 mandatory. I am relatively new to Labview,

I am only have 8 months of developing experience (but no professonally) and mostly I have learned by myself, reading books

and NI guides, as I had to work with an SB-RIO to develope a Control application for my final career work.

I have the Labview Basic Course I and II but I do not know if they are outdated and if it would be a problem to prepare

for the exam using these, unfortunately I do not have access to more recent Labview Core 1 and 2.

Do you guys think that using the Basic Courses as a base-material should be ok?

Also I read here in the forums that "Labview for Everyone" is the prefered book, but I have some other books and

before spending my funds on amazon I wanted to check with you if they are more or less equivalent

and valid to my purpose of obtaining the CLAD in this time.

"Labview advanced programming techniques 2nd Edition"

"Labview for Engineers"

"Labview Based Advanced Instrumentation"

"The Labview Style book"

Plus I also have the Compact Rio developers guide and the 6 hours course ...ect

I think I am going to use the Basic Courses but I need your opinion if I am going to need to complete

this study with some books, and if this is true, would be some of the titles I post above sufficient?

Please let me appologize because my lack of experience is causing some king of anxiety to the task I

have ahead.

And let me thank you in advance.

[Jordan Kuehn]

From my memory, the CLAD was focused on determining if you understood the language and data flow concepts. Things like loop iterations, execution order, expected output from an operation, etc. It's been a while since I took it so someone can jump in if it has changed, but I would imagine Basic would do a pretty good job of preparing you.

In your position I would recommend LabVIEW for Everyone. Mine is collecting some dust on my shelf, but there is a lot of great beginner/medium information in that book. I can't comment on the others.

[crossrulz]

I have not gone through the LabVIEW for Everyone. But from quick skimming, it looked really good.

The LabVIEW Style Book is really good, but it won't help you with the CLAD.

I found the Advanced LabVIEW Techniques worthless. There's no code in it!

The Basics I and II course books should be really helpful. The core of LabVIEW hasn't changed much.

Here are some links that may help you in your studies.

CLAD Information on NI.com - there's a few links for practice exams and other study material

The Daily CLAD on NI Communities - CLAD-like questions to get you thinking about possible topics

[JaviRome]

^{Thank you for your responses,}

^{I´ve already downloaded the practice exams and other NI stuff, and I am going to check The Daily CLAD at least twice a day!!}

^{Do you think that "Advanced Labview Techniques" and "The Labview Style Book" are more oriented towards CLD taking? I think "Labview for Engineers" is quite simple}

^{and "Labview Advanced Instrumentation" is more practical or oriented into play with hardware,}

^{I am in doubt of purchasing "Labview for everyone" because although I think it would be a great help for preparing the CLAD I have no such a lot of time}

^{and maybe with the Basics and the internet info, youtube channels....etc is sufficient to make it.}

^{"Labview for everyone" would be worthly if someday I decided to take the CLD?}

^{Thank you again for the help!!}

[Oakromulo]

LabVIEW for Everyone was an amazing tool for my first two months in my new job. Definitely worth the read, though a little bit boring after some time if you have a intermediate programming experience in textual languages.

Don't forget to take a very comprehensive look at the NI CLAD material. Highlight every question you commit a mistake at the sample exams. This NI "Webcast" below is also very recommended.

http://zone.ni.com/w...oc/p/id/wv-1950

It's a very straightforward exam. Hard to pass without commiting any single mistake but easy to reach the 70% mark. My manager, with very little LV experience besides demoing stuff, was able to pass in his first try. Please come back later to tell us how was your experience!

P.S. It's not going to help with your exams, but if you want to know a little bit more about the RIO platform, you should spend some time with the NI CompactRIO Developers Guide:

http://www.ni.com/pd...riodevguide.pdf

[JaviRome]

Thank you for your advice, Oakromulo, I´ll check that webcast.

I am on the book quest, besides the books I stated on my first post, I have read on the Labview wiki these others:

• A Software Engineering Approach to LabVIEW [2]
  Prentice Hall, 2003 Conway, Jon, and Watts Steve.
  
• LabVIEW for Everyone Graphical Programming Made Easy and Fun (3rd Edition) [3] (which is the recommended book here)
  Prentice Hall PTR, 2006 Travis, Jeffery, and Kring, Jim.
  
• Hands On Introduction to LabVIEW for Scientist and Engineers [6]
  Oxford University Press, 2008 Essick, John.
  

which one you think it is better suited for helping to taking the CLAD and eventually in the future the CLD? and anyone knows if they are equivalent to

the ones I stated? or if they are complementary...like ... better for one thing, lesser for another..

any help will be appreciated

I think I am going to purchase one book and I want to maximize the investment!!

[jaredk]

Hello,

I have worked as a National Instruments LabVIEW Student Ambassador (LSA). One of the goals of the LSAs is to prepare students at universities to pass the CLAD. As a result, I am familiar with some of the more recent versions of the CLAD exam. You might find some useful resources here.

From my memory, the CLAD was focused on determining if you understood the language and data flow concepts. Things like loop iterations, execution order, expected output from an operation, etc.

The CLAD exam will ask a few simple questions on a very wide range of topics (see study guide found at link above). Many of the questions do involve looking at code and determining the correct output (often testing your understanding of loops, execution order, etc.) Other questions test your knowledge of specific LabVIEW features and functionality (e.g. queues, notifiers, semaphores). A book might be a useful reference, but isn't necessarily the best thing for CLAD preparation. You should be able to find most of the information you need to pass the CLAD online (and freely available). I strongly recommend taking one of the 2 released CLAD practice exams to see how well-prepared that you are already.

Note that the 2 practice exams may be a bit outdated. Because of this, you might want to build in a buffer to evaluating your performance on the practice exams. If you can score >85% on the practice exams, you are probably fine. If you are below 85% on the practice exams, you might need more preparation.

There will inevitably be questions you cannot answer, and it will have nothing to do with your ability to use LabVIEW. What matters is that you get at least a 70%.

Please take a practice exam and read the CLAD study guide at the link above before you decide what to do next.

Best of luck.

[JaviRome]

Hello,

I have worked as a National Instruments LabVIEW Student Ambassador (LSA). One of the goals of the LSAs is to prepare students at universities to pass the CLAD. As a result, I am familiar with some of the more recent versions of the CLAD exam. You might find some useful resources here.

The CLAD exam will ask a few simple questions on a very wide range of topics (see study guide found at link above). Many of the questions do involve looking at code and determining the correct output (often testing your understanding of loops, execution order, etc.) Other questions test your knowledge of specific LabVIEW features and functionality (e.g. queues, notifiers, semaphores). A book might be a useful reference, but isn't necessarily the best thing for CLAD preparation. You should be able to find most of the information you need to pass the CLAD online (and freely available). I strongly recommend taking one of the 2 released CLAD practice exams to see how well-prepared that you are already.

Note that the 2 practice exams may be a bit outdated. Because of this, you might want to build in a buffer to evaluating your performance on the practice exams. If you can score >85% on the practice exams, you are probably fine. If you are below 85% on the practice exams, you might need more preparation.

There will inevitably be questions you cannot answer, and it will have nothing to do with your ability to use LabVIEW. What matters is that you get at least a 70%.

Please take a practice exam and read the CLAD study guide at the link above before you decide what to do next.

Best of luck.

Hello Jaredk, thank for your support, just want to make you one question... as you were student ambassador,

I just have search the NI community forums, and it seems that there are several "CLAD Workshops" which I suppose

might be a good start point to prepare the exam, could you recommend me one? (although it seems they are all similar,

which one you think it is the most complete to prepare the exam?...or something like that)

[JackDunaway]

I'm impressed with how much quality traffic the Certification Forum (http://forums.ni.com/t5/Certification/bd-p/Certification) gets -- this is the location with the single highest information density about all things CL(?:A|D|AD). You'll find that both helpful experts and the NI Certification team keep close tabs on that board -- check it out!

[Michael Aivaliotis]

The certification team should also keep tabs on this board.

[JackDunaway]

The certification team should also keep tabs on this board.

Quite true -- missed the fact this post is under the "http://lavag.org/forum/44-certification-and-training/" Certification Subforum 

[jaredk]

Hello Jaredk, thank for your support, just want to make you one question... as you were student ambassador,

I just have search the NI community forums, and it seems that there are several "CLAD Workshops" which I suppose

might be a good start point to prepare the exam, could you recommend me one? (although it seems they are all similar,

which one you think it is the most complete to prepare the exam?...or something like that)

The CLAD Workshops are hosted at universities which have a LabVIEW Student Ambassador during academic semesters. As such, these workshops will not be relevant to you (as you are taking the exam really soon). Many of the workshop groups have publicly-available resources online, though. Hopefully the resources I linked you to will be sufficient.

[Roderic]

Hello,

 

From your first post, it seems to me that you have enough material to study from. Just take all the sample exams and learn from your mistakes and you should do fine.

 

LabVIEW for Everyone is a great tool for CLAD, as far as CLD is concerned you'll need some real world experience. 

 

Regards,

[JaviRome]

CLAD passed!!

 

Made a few mistakes but I am happy because I am passed. Most difficult questions were at the beginning and my mind was blowing up...

 

Now going for the CLD!!

 

Thank you ALL very much for the help and support.