The $64,000 questions

When you visit a quiz site, the introductory page will ask you to enter your details, then select the level (basic, intermediate, advanced, or mixed) that you wish to sit.

On the next page, you'll be presented with 15 questions to answer. Simply choose the right answer to the best of your ability, and click on the "done" button.

The final screen gives you your results - with the details entered onto the initial form echoed back in the page so that you can print out your personal result.

"How long does it take?"

If you're very fast and know the subject well, you should complete the test in just a few minutes. Most candidates such be done in 10 to 15 minutes.

"Are the results reliable?"

Yes. We set sufficient questions to ensure that you won't receive a good mark if you simply guess at the answers, and we take certain steps to mimimise the chance of candidates cheating sucessfully.

"What does the test cost?"

You pay us nothing. It's just like being on almost any other web site.

Other common questions:

All the questions asked are multiple choice, and you must select the one correct answer. Most questions have four possible answers, but there are a few which are just true or false, and some that have up to 8 to choose from.

"How many questions are there in each test?"

Fifteen. We need to set at least 15 questions to do a good evaluation; if there were fewer, statistical irregularities would mean that candidates who guessed would occasionally get good scores, and expert candidates would occasionally be marked down unfairly because of just one or two questions which happened to hit a weakness.

"Is it the same questions each time?"

No, it isn't! Each time you call for a quiz, a fresh mix is made from our database of over 500 questions. The questions can appear in any order, and the possible answers are presented in a random order. Even if, after taking th test several times, a question re-appears, you'll still need to read the question and select carefully.

"Are there any trick questions?"

No. This is a serious test to evaluate the candidate - we don't include trick questions. You will find, though, that we have a sense of humour and a very few questions have possible answers that will bring a smile to your face.

"Are the questions at different levels?"

You can take the test on each subject at three levels - beginner, intermediate and advanced, and the questions are graded to those three levels. It's our intent that the questions at each level will be similar to one another in how hard or easy they are so that test results can be compared. We do NOT start the test with an easy practice question.

If you take a "mixed" test, then you'll get a random selection of questions from all three levels.

"Am I told what questions I get right and wrong?"

Yes - the result screen reprints all the questions, and tells you which you got right and which you got wrong. Against the wrong questions (or those which you don't answer - they count as wrong), you'll be told what you said and what the correct answer should have been. As well as being a test, the quiz site is intended as a learning experience!

"Can I go back and correct my answers then?"

No, you can't! There's nothing to stop you taking another new test, but it will be with different questions.

"Can the candidate fix the results?"

Anything's possible online, but the results can't be easily fixed. On the final evaluation page, we echo back the time taken between the questions being set and the answers submitted, so that you can see if the time was excessive because each answer was being looked up. And we don't let candidates go back and correct once they have been given their results and the answers.

If you're a prospecive employer, or working for a recruitment agency evaluating candidates, we would advise you to run the test in house. After all, we can't prevent an unscrupulous candidate from getting a friend to sit the test for him at home ....

"What if I don't agree with an answer?"

Please do email us - we'll be happy to hear. Although every attempt has been made to ensure that all questions are accurate, and have one answer that is clearly correct and others which are clearly wrong, mistakes can be made (and the wording of questions could confuse). By letting us know that you don't agree, you'll trigger us to check the clarity and possible answers of a question, which can only be for the good of future visitors.

"Are the test certified?"

Whilst these tests give a good quick insite into someone's ability, there's a lot more than 15 multiple-choice questions to a certification that's worth having.

"Who runs these quiz sites?"

They're run by Well House Consultants. Well House Consultants provide training and consultancy (and limited contract work) in Perl, Tcl, Java, PHP, MySQL, Ruby and other related fields.

"What's in it for Well House Consultants?"

We wanted to ensure that people book on the right course with us, but often people are self taught and had no way of knowing what level they've reached. Now we simply send them to the quiz site.

We encourage employers, prospective employers, recruitment agencies and potential candidates to use the tests. If the candidates do well, that's great. If not, we might get a customer for training.

"Can I use the software for my own site / questions?"

Our software is applicable to other subjects - indeed, it has already been used for an employee evaluation program covering knowledge of the adminsitration of the Solaris operating system. We are open to further approaches.

When you've read this page, jump back to the home page of the tests and try out your Perl knowledge