KeenEyes17 Blog

I passed my ISTQB CTFL-AT (Agile Tester) exam yesterday. I was surprised by several of the questions, because I'm pretty sure that a few of the terms and concepts were not mentioned in the Skillsoft prep course I took. 

I took the exam at a place that specializes in proctored testing, after getting myself ready Saturday morning so carefully, then drove off without my cell phone. By the time I realized it, it would have been a 40 mile round trip to retrieve it. I had to stop at the customer service desk of a grocery store to ask if they could help me with directions. The clerk looked up the directions on her own cell phone, while I wrote it down. I arrived at the test location with little time to spare, but I guess it didn't matter, because the last-minute study document I planned on reading was on my phone! 

Bug Hunts can be fun. But in a crowd-sourced testing environment they are very competitive, and not too lucrative, unless maybe you have a LOT of experience. Often, only the first person to find a bug gets paid for it, so you need to spend time reading all the other bug reports to make sure you're not filing a duplicate. If a website is huge and well done, you could spend a couple hours before you find something reportable, and then be paid only a few dollars for it, unless you happen to find a really critical one.

Today, I am irked that another tester basically copied my bug report, repeated it in a different environment, and reported it as a new bug. He did a really sloppy job (probably because he was trying to alter it so it didn't appear to be a copy, but he left in crucial details that make it obvious that he copied me), didn't follow instructions about titling the report, and didn't even acknowledge that he had been able to reproduce my bug. Unbelievable. I hope this is not the norm. Note: if you confirm other's bugs, you don't get paid, but you get positive points for it. 

I passed the exam for the ISTQB CTFL-MAT Certification (Certified Tester, Foundation Level Mobile Application Tester) on April 3, 2021!

Attended several testing / QA conferences & webinars in the last 2 months.

Today: updated and corrected a few items on this website, added several links, including one or two that I picked up at conferences. 

Today: was notified today that I got a bonus for a uTest cycle last month, for my quality work. It wasn't a lot, but it was nice to be recognized!

I got a surprise invitation to beta-test an ASTQB exam for foundation level mobile application tester!  I will not get paid, but I get a free voucher for the exam. If I pass, I will have another certification.  I only have a little over 10 days to study, so am a bit nervous, but I can't pass up this opportunity.  If I hadn't been laid off from my full-time computer operations job with full severance pay into the 1st week of May, I probably wouldn't be able to do this.  

But I gotta wonder, how on earth do you beta-test a live timed and proctored EXAM?  Take a survey after you're done?  I'll find out the last week of March!

My first paycheck from uTest showed up in my PayPal account today!  Only $33, but I'm just getting started!