Boson Exam Publishing Author | Support Topics
We’ve provided some answers to common questions below. If you do not see the answer to your question on this page, please contact us at
authors@boson.com or 877.333.3926.
Show All Hide All | Who can write a Marketplace practice exam and publish it through Boson Exam Publishing? |
 Show Answer Anyone with experience taking and passing a real exam, such as a standardized college admissions exam or a professional certification or licensure exam, can write a Marketplace practice exam. Examples include practice exams for the GED, SAT, ACT, GRE or GMAT; certification exams for IT technologies; professional licensure exams for engineers, teachers, realtors, etc.; and many others.
Whatever your area of expertise, Boson Exam Publishing offers you a platform for publishing a practice exam to help other professionals or students pass the real exam.
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| What kind of experience do I need if I want to write a practice exam? |
Show Answer We recommend that you have personal experience taking and passing the exam for which you are writing. If it has been a while since you took the real exam, we recommend that you take it again, if at all possible, to make sure that you are familiar with the testing format and the material covered.
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| Will Boson pay for me to take the real exam? |
Show Answer Boson will not pay for you to take the real exam. But with a well-written practice exam, you will have the opportunity to recover your initial investment for the real exam.
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| How much work will it require? That is, what is the time commitment for me? |
Show Answer The time it takes to write a practice exam varies based on the length of the real exam, the depth of the content included and your level of writing skill. If you determine that you will be writing 150 questions for your practice exam and want to know how long that will take, we recommend writing a sample of questions, such as 20, and timing how long those took you to write. That will give you an idea of how long the rest of the exam will take you to write.
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| How long should my practice exam be? |
Show Answer The products that our in-house Boson authors write typically include three full-length practice exams per product. For instance, if a real exam includes 50 questions, our authors will write three practice exams of 50 questions each, for a total of 150 questions in a product. We recommend that you use the same guidelines.
You will also want to consider the length and complexity of the individual questions when you are deciding how many questions to write. If the real exam includes 100 simple, one- or two-sentence multiple-choice questions, it may still be easy for you to write three full-length exams. By contrast, if the real exam includes 100 questions that consist of several long paragraphs for just the question portion (not even considering the explanation portion), you may want to write only two full-length exams for one product.
Once you commit to becoming a Boson Exam Publishing Author, we will gladly work with you to determine the optimal length for the practice exam that you choose to write.
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| How much money will I make from writing a practice exam? |
Show Answer The amount of money you receive will be based on a royalty structure defined in your Boson Exam Publishing Marketplace Agreement. Since royalties are based on sales, your royalty payments will depend on factors such as the quality of your practice exam, the size of your target market and the demand for your exam. We recommend that you research the potential market before you write your practice exam.
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| What title should I give my practice exam? |
Show Answer You can title your product whatever you want, as long as it does not violate the Author Conduct Guidelines. However, we recommend that you give your practice exam a title that reflects the vendor and the exam number of the real exam. This is to help customers easily identify your product and match it to their needs. The vendor is the organization that creates the exam. For instance, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) creates the SAT, GRE and TOEFL exams among many others. CompTIA is the organization that creates the IT-related exams such as A+, Network+ and Security+. The exam number, if there is one, is the identification given to the exam by the exam vendor. For example, the most recent version of the CompTIA Network+ exam is numbered N10-004. So if you were writing a practice exam for the real Network+ exam, your exam should have a title similar to Practice Exam for N10-004 CompTIA Network+. You may include your name, a pseudonym or another unique identifier to brand your products provided your name does not infringe the trademarks of any other person or entity. If you choose not to name your product, the default name will be “Marketplace Practice Exam for [Vendor] [Exam Number] [Exam Name]” and may include an ordinal identifier such as #1, #2, etc. if more than one practice exam is available for same real exam.
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| What information should I include in a practice exam question? |
Show Answer The following elements are required for each practice exam question that you write: - Question portion – This consists of only the question, whether the question is one sentence, several sentences or several paragraphs.
- Choices – These will typically be multiple-choice options.
- Explanation – The real exams won’t include explanations of the correct answers, but explanations are key to writing effective practice exams. We recommend writing several paragraphs to explain why the correct answer is right and why the incorrect answers are wrong. This is your opportunity to educate the customer on the material that the exam covers.
- References – We encourage you to cite authoritative Web or book references to support the material in your explanations.
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| What types of questions does the Boson practice exam software support? |
Show Answer The Boson Exam Environment (BEE), which is the software that will be used to deliver your practice exam, supports the following types of questions: - Multiple-choice, single-answer
- Multiple-choice, multiple-answer
- True/False
- Fill-in-the-blank (however, the options to fill in the blank must be presented as multiple-choice; the answer cannot be typed in)
- Special question formats: Drag-and-drop, simulation and case study
Essay questions or other types of questions where the answer must be typed are not supported.
We recommend that you use the question type most often found in the real exam for which you are writing. If that exam contains mainly multiple-choice, single-answer questions, your practice exam should mimic the ratio on the real exam. If that exam contains numerous drag-and-drop questions or other special question formats, please contact us and we will work with you to ensure that those questions are formatted correctly. Additionally, we may be able to create special question types for you as a service.
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| How should I deliver the practice exam content to Boson? |
Show Answer All of your practice exam content should be submitted in a Microsoft Word 2007 or Microsoft Word 2010 document. Anyone with experience using a word-processing program should be able to easily create content for a Marketplace practice exam. After you commit to becoming a Boson Exam Publishing Author, we will provide you with a template on which you will base your content document.
The formatting of the document is simple. You will need to use styles; here is a brief video that gives you an example of how to use styles in Word 2007. Don’t worry if you do not immediately understand the steps involved. If you need further help learning how to format your content document, Boson will provide more extensive instruction once you decide to become a Boson Exam Publishing Author.
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| In what format will my practice exam be sold? |
Show Answer Your practice exam will be sold in software format. The Boson Exam Environment (BEE) is the software that will be used to deliver your practice exam content. Customers will download the BEE software and your practice exam content from the Boson Marketplace.
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| Will my practice exam be the only one of its kind available in the Boson Marketplace? |
Show Answer Not necessarily. Boson Exam Publishing acts as a publisher and does not generally provide exclusivity to particular authors. You are free to create a practice exam that competes with existing practice exams in the Boson Marketplace and other authors are free to compete with your exam if they so choose. By writing the best quality practice exam that you are capable of writing, you can help ensure that your product will outsell the competition.
If you are interested in writing an IT practice exam, particularly one published by Microsoft, Cisco or CompTIA, be aware that it may compete with a Boson ExSim-Max exam simulation for the same exam.
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| Will I be able to see my product before others do? |
Show Answer When you have released your completed practice exam to us for publishing in the Boson Exam Environment (BEE), we will publish it and enable you to review your practice exam. You will be responsible for testing and proofing the exam to make sure that all content is present and appears as you intended. If you are satisfied with its appearance, we will make the practice exam available for purchase.
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| Can I update my practice exam? |
Show Answer You can update your practice exam, and we
encourage you to do so. Vendors often publish updates to their exams, and we
recommend that you keep your practice exam up to date with the real exam. Practice
exams that are up to date and current with the topics and objectives of the
real exam consistently outsell practice exams that have outdated or stale
content. Please contact us for information regarding updating your exam when
you are ready to update it.
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| Does Boson Exam Publishing offer other types of self-publishing opportunities? |
Show Answer The Boson Exam Environment (BEE) is primarily a
practice exam delivery engine. If you are interested in working with Boson on other
types of self-publishing, such as books, audio or video please contact us at authors@boson.com.
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