jeanne togaf certification part 2

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I passed part 2 with 90% today.  Despite having taken part 1 a month ago and not touched studied since, I retained a lot. This is good. As I skimmed/read the part 2 study guide, I also realized I retained a lot from class.  I spent less than a week studying for part 2.  But most of the learning went on during the class and when studying for part 1.

Registering for the test

Registering at Prometric went smoothly.  I wish they’d let you search by zip code.  New York State is large.  My local testing site didn’t have any seats the day I wanted to take the exam.  And I would never go back to the second closest one (read why Horizon Technical Consultants of Flushing is no good.)  I then looked for centers in Manhattan and found NetComLearning.  (I think I might have taken the Core Spring cert there.  It’s a good center.  They even let you keep your wallet/house keys with you in your pocket.)

Resources I used to study

I’m sharing my scores in addition to commentary on the practice exams.  This helps with the “am I ready to take the exam” question.  The gist is that your score on your first attempt of the official practice test is a good predictor of your score on the real test.

Resource Comments
The official part 2 study guide. Since part 2 is open book, my study approach was to have both the official part 2 study guide and 700 page pdf open.  I mapped the text/paragraphs between the two as I skimmed/read.  The goal was to become familiar with how to find information quickly in the 700 page book.  Which is a useful skill for when I later need this information to apply TOGAF.While much of the text is the same as the 700 page book, it is easier to read and more concise.  It costs $30 but we were provided a copy as part of the course.  It also contains the official practice test, but more on that later.
Open Arch practice test – #1 I got 75% on this one.  I had only read a couple chapters of the study guide at this point.  I used a mix of memory and the 700 page pdf.  Note that this practice test is better than practice test #2.  I wish I had waited to try it.  It’s still not as hard/interesting as the official practice test though.
Open Arch practice test – #2 I got 100% on this one.  On this one, I looked up every single answer and used it as a sanity check that I could find information in the PDF quickly.  Which I could as I answered all 8 questions in 35 minutes.  Both practice tests seemed way too easy as they were a very straightforward mapping to the PDF.  It was also possible to identify some answers as wrong by comparing the verbiage in questions to each other.  The official practice test is much harder/more interesting.  They were still worth doing though.  If you can’t recall or look up this information very quickly, you aren’t ready for the official practice test.
9 multiple questions on viewpoints Viewpoints aren’t covered in the study guide, but are apparently important.  I went through the 9 multiple questions with the study guide open as a review from class.  I only got 5/9.  Wish there was some detail with the answers.
Official practice test This is included in the study guide.  Alternatively, you can buy it for 99 cents.  The reason I keep saying hard/interesting, is that they don’t give away the phase by stating it; you get to think.  That’s the interesting part.  The hard part is that the questions are LONG and there is a lot to keep track of when comparing answer choices.I like that the answer key tells you what they were testing along with a chapter/section reference in the book. My score was 95%.  I got the second best answer on the viewpoints question.   I’m shocked that I did this well as my brain felt like it was turning to mush while reading the choices. Other interesting scoring statistics: I identified the distractor correctly on 7-8 of the questions.  (on question 7, I wrote two choices as being distractors because I couldn’t tell which was the distractor and which was merely wrong.)  On 5 of the questions, I identified the 1st/2nd/3rd/distractor order completely correct.I spent 50 minutes on it.  I didn’t spend the remaining 40 because I read the 700 page book in the exam is hard to use.  Which means I’d waste a lot of time on that on the real exam.
My instructor’s 4 practice questions I got 40% on this.  I found the distractor on three of the four questions.  I wasn’t able to use the book to help me with any of this question set.  And I only spent 15 minutes.  Maybe I was tired? The spirit felt very different in that I used the book a lot for the official practice test and not at all for these four questions.  I did it again the morning of test day and got 80%.  Granted this was because I knew not to go with my gut choices.  I also used the book a tiny bit (to double check artifact names in one question.)  This was meant to be a confidence building activity and not a test of how I was doing.  I still find these questions to be A LOT harder than the official practice test.
Chris Eaton’s 2 practice questions I got 50% of this.  I found the distractor on one of the two questions.  I was able to use the book to help.  On this one, I KNOW I was tired as I missed the phase one question was asking about and it was explicitly stated in the question.

Tips

  • As you do practice questions, try to rank them in terms of “best answer”, “2nd answer”, “3rd answer” and “distractor.”  All the practice exams give you all four of these in the answer key so you can check your understanding AND test taking skills extra.
  • On both practice tests and the real exam, try to identify the distractor before you start ranking the others.  The distractor may not use TOGAF words.  Or it may pertain to a different part of TOGAF.  If you can identify the distractor on every question, your expected value is now 60% on the exam.  (Because you can now get 1, 3 or 5 points out of 5).  Conveniently, this is the pass score.
  • Read the description of the Prometric PDF usability issues.  I didn’t have this problem as you’ll see below, but it is still good advice.
  • There are two possible approaches on using the PDF.  One is to take the whole test without it and then check answers at the end.  The other is the use the PDF for each question but timebox it.  I chose the later. I determined I wouldn’t spend more than 10 minutes per question on the first pass.  Then I’d use the extra time at the end on any I “ran out of time on.”  In the official practice test, that was just the viewpoint question.

Test day strategy

  • I made sure that the laminated board was two sided.  You are entitled two two boards (or a two sided one.)  When I went to Horizon, they only gave me a one sided one.  For that test, I wasn’t writing much so it didn’t matter.  For TOGAF, I used the two sides.
  • The engine:
    • Don’t bother taking the practice/training test.  I said yes to taking it thinking I’d get to see where the reference button was for the PDF.  And maybe the navigation.  Nope.  It was just the standard Prometric engine in the practice.  Which you’ve seen in part 1 so should be familiar with by now.
    • The screen displays two frames.  The left one is the scenario part.  The right one is the one-two sentence question and all the answers.  I didn’t have to scroll as much as I was worried about.
    • The bottom left corner as a “reference” button that launches the PDF.  It was a little laggy; taking 1-2 seconds each time to open the PDF.  The PDF displays in a new “window”, but not the type you can alt-tab to.  So a lot of clicking.  The PDF was fine though.  I had read it was clunky, but it wasn’t.  You could navigate using the table of contents or searching or scrolling.  Just like when I practiced.  The only odd thing is that I seem to have hit a shortcut to keep scrolling down at some point.  I clicked around and it stopped after 15 seconds of poking.
  • Before clicking the start button, I took a moment to write each question #, “a”, b”, “c”, “d”.  I was only able to fit three of them going down the page so I put the fourth on the right quarter of the page.  I did the same on the back so I was all set for the eight questions.
  • The actual test was the first time I didn’t feel my brain turning to mush from reading the questions.  I guess I FINALLY learned to discern what is important.
  • I went through the questions in three passes.
    1. The first pass (50 minutes) was for questions I could answer in less than 10 minutes each.  I did use the PDF for six of the eight questions on pass one because I felt I could do so efficiently. During this pass, I wrote down the area I felt the question was testing and whether I felt each choice was the distractor, 1st, 2nd or 3rd answer along with my thoughts on why.  This helped me avoid having to re-read the answers.  It also let me recover my thoughts when revisiting.  I also logged the amount of time I spent on each question (to keep me moving) and my confidence level of my answers on a scale from 1 to 10.  This let me know which ones to go back to.
    2. The second pass (15 minutes) was for doing a mini “research project” on the two areas I was less familiar with.  I could have answered each of these in less than 10 minutes.  I choose not to on pass 1 so I could figure out where my time would be well spent.  Obviously, the “research project” approach wouldn’t help if you weren’t familiar with the PDF.
    3. The third pass (2 minutes) was to click through each question and make sure the radio button for my first choice was still selected.

Overall impressions of the TOGAF cert

  • Studying for part 1 was tedious to me.  I hate memorizing.  It is necessary to know the terms/phases though so it was worth spending time on.  Just unpleasant.
  • Studying for part 2 was more interesting.  It became an exercise in how to use the book efficiently for me in addition to becoming more familiar with TOGAF.  This is a good skill.  And most of the questions are about understanding/application which is more fun.
  • And nothing to do with the cert, but I have used a little TOGAF at work since I took the class.  Which shows the use!

Good luck on your cert and feel free to ask questions in the CodeRanch TOGAF forum.

Note: As usual, don’t bother asking me to share materials.  Everything mentioned here is either free online (which you can get) or paid content (which I will not share.)

37 thoughts on “jeanne togaf certification part 2”

  1. Pingback: jeanne’s togaf foundation cert in 3 weeks experiences | Down Home Country Coding With Scott Selikoff and Jeanne Boyarsky

  3. Hi, Jeanne. Thanks for the article, helps a lot. Just curious about test results: do they show up in the screen immediately after you submit the test?

    Thanks.

  4. I don’t remember. I know I got my score at the testing center when I took the TOGAF exams. I don’t remember if it was on the screen or via a printout at the front desk.

  5. Hi Jeanne
    thanks for all information, it’s very helpful in Togaf preparation.

    Can you please advise me – where can I get this open book ( “700 page book” you mentioned in your post ), which will be available during exam 2.

    thanks!

  7. Thanks a lot, it is really helpful peace of information. I cleared part 1 yesterday and looking forward for part 2 very soon.

  8. Finally passed Part 2 with 100%. I followed all of your study references and searched for other sample questions. I agree with you, view and viewpoints are not covered in detail in the study but they are important. Candidates should review the Architecture Artifacts in the TOGAF book. Other than that, content metamodels (core and extensions) are also important. I got a question asking which extension(s) is/are suitable for the given scenario. Another thing is I found the navigation of the TOGAF PDF in the exam was very strange. Every time I tried to navigate to a different section using the navigation pane on the left hand side, the whole screen would minimize.

  9. Thanks for your blog and the inputs. I took the part 1 and part 2 together and scored 80% in both. Happy to be Togaf certified in one go. A 4 day training, study guide questions, and all the online inputs helped.

  10. Hi,

    I have cleared the foundation exam last month.

    For Part 2 exam, I already have the 700 page ebook (G116). Is it necessary to additionally purchase the ‘TOGAF certification guide’ ? I need to read through both the books for the Part 2 exam ?

    Thanks, Ajay

  13. Hi Jeanne, I completed the Part2 successfully last week. Your blog helped me alot in preparing for both Part1 and Part2. Thanks.

  14. Hi,
    I am slated to give the Part 2 exam next week. Can anyone provide me links to any practice tests ?
    – I already have the link for the openarch.com exams.

  15. Hi Jeanne, Thanks for very useful post. I am planning to take Combined Part 1 and Part 2. Once I complete Part 1, is there a break time before I start Part 2 ? If so, how long ?

  19. Hi Jeanne,
    I found your this post too to be very helpful. I passed Part 2 today with 90%. The questions were very similar to the ones in the official practice test. In fact, some of the scenarios were almost the same. So you are quite right that the first attempt at the practice test is a good indicator of how prepared one is. I found the reference PDF during the test to be user friendly enough. Though I did not use the search feature, it is possible to drag the PDF window around in case one wants to compare the answers with what’s there in the book.

    Regards.

  20. Hello Jeanne,
    As everyone has mentioned here, I found your posts (Part 1 and 2) very helpful and my personal favorite throughout the process. Passed Part 2 with 80% yesterday and it’s an exhilarating experience to see the result. The PDF during the exam was very easy to navigate and quite user friendly, you can find, use the index, resize, etc. As Caveman has mentioned I did get a question on Artifacts. Some questions have a scenarios without a concern by the CIO/CCO/CTO, etc and those I found to be quite tricky. I did not get any questions out of the practice tests, quite contrary to Part 1. Practice tests, I was able to finish within 1/2 hour (and get about 90~95%) but in the actual exam I used up every second. But your tips about confidence level, identifying the distractor, and various links to other relevant and helpful sites are very concise. Appreciate taking the time to chronicle your experiences. I have put together my experiences but this is the first site I would suggest anyone to look at.
    Good luck to other aspiring Enterprise Architects.
    Cheers!

  21. On Chris Eaton’s 2 practice questions, I would argue the answer to the second question is given wrong. I’d argue the best answer is C, since establishing the architecture project is the first step in phase A. Option C has this. Option A (which he has given as the best answer) IMO is the second best answer, as it has all the steps of phase A, but establishing the project comes very late in the game in that option

  22. Just wondering if anyone has used the examskey trial exams for part 2? are they reliable and worth the extra money?

  23. Hi, I am following ur blog for TOGAF part2 preparation and was curious to see how real exam with 4 answer fit in one page. I came across your point – Before clicking the start button, I took a moment to write each question #, “a”, b”, “c”, “d”. I was only able to fit three of them going down the page so I put the fourth on the right quarter of the page. I did the same on the back so I was all set for the eight questions. Please elaborate on this.

  25. Hi Jeanne,

    Thanks for tips,mentioned in your blog. Your blog is very useful. I have cleared TOGAF level 2 exam yesterday with 77 % score. Thanks Once Again.

  26. Thanks for your blog and the inputs. I took the part 1 and part 2 together and scored 85% in both. Happy to be TOGAF certified in one go. A 4 day training, study guide questions, and all the online inputs helped.

  30. Just wanted to pass my thanks along. Your study guides for part 1 and part 2 truly helped me out!

  31. I just wanted to say thanks as i passed both part 1 and part 2 exams. Your study guides on this blog helped me a lot.

  32. Jeanne.. i am following a togaf certified guide by rachel harrison.. do you know about it ? any idea if this is good enuff.. or do i have to get the official study guide as a proper one to score up ?

  33. also.. what is this 700 page pdf you are talking about ? is it something you got separately in your class.. or ? what am i missing here ?

  35. Jeanne.. i passed level 2 with 75%.. IMO not a v good score, but passed 🙂
    few observations –
    the current togaf test-centre tie-up is pearson vue and not prometric.. and, its horrible, to say the least ! im seriously considering to tab this to the open group ppl.. the software embedded in the test was not user-friendly and it took atleast 3 4secs to load up everytime.. navigation was quite bad.. it did impact my focus a bit..

    overall the scenarios were similar to that of the practice test, but i got questions that had v close 5’s & 3’s.. and looking at my score, i think i chose a few 3’s.. there was the usual one of catalog, matrices & diagrams.. there was 1q of architecture skills framework, 1q of compliance reviews, 1q on archi principles.. but the 5 & 3 had v subtle differences..

    many thanks to your blog that i cud shape my prep to a decent level ! i just hope this cert is put to use soon, else all will rust 🙂

  36. Hi Jeanne,
    I’d like to take TOGAF Certified exam soon.
    I’ve studied on Rachel Harrison’s book and I’m able to find main topic on TOGAF Spec.
    I’ve made several exercises:
    1. Official practice tests (12 scenarios)
    2. The OpenArch (8 + 8 scenarios)
    3. The questions at https://www.briefmenow.org/the-open-group/category/exam-og0-092-togaf-9-part-2-exam/
    But sometimes I’m not sure about the answers provided by the above site.

    1. Is there any other web site I can look at?
    2. Are the exercises provided in 1. 2. 3. enough to try to take the exam?
    Regards
    Mark

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