Passed my Cert Exam this evening

[Bama Bayou]

Congratulations Sheriff.

 

[redfish]

About time sheriff pukeus. Good luck to your "staff appraiser", the Mexican, opps I meant the Puerto Rican.

 

[The Sheriff]

Ya... I took the exam in your old stomping grounds... almost went to Hooters to revisit memories with you from back in the day!

 

[Metamorphic]

Too bad the state boards can't be more practical with these exams. If I had my way and I was a board member, I'd make a candidate inspect and write 10 appraisal reports on pre-selected houses (training houses that the board has intimate knowledge of - and not all cookie cutters). In this respect, an appraiser has to be practical... research, writing, content, content, content. Have a grading system based on the quality of the work. It would be clear and dry what deficiencies an appraiser has... and maybe assist in cleaning up our industry wide mess.

Lots of problems with that. For one, are they going to lock you up in a testing room for a week and a half why you crank these out?

Secondly, when ever a government agency undertakes to do other than a standardized test...something where subjective grading is necessary...their requirements for objectivity, impartiality, fairness are significant. The California Registered Geologist test is a one day test, but it has a section that requires essay answers, and the preparation of maps and cross sections where there is a range of reasonable answers. Stuff a computer cannot grade. To grade these tests, its my understanding that they have a panel that gets the questions without names, several panel members read each one, if the grades they assign are too different there's a tie breaker judge, all the test results are assembled together and a curve is established, questions that were exceptionally hard or easy get their scores weighted, etc etc. Its a $300 test fee, and it takes about 6 months to get the results back and they only offer the test once or twice a year. However, unlike a appraiser in training, a geologist in training can actually make a living, and produce valuable work so its not a hardship.