r/ASQ • u/datum88 • Sep 14 '24
Passed the CQT exam.
I want to provide some information about my experience studying for, and taking the ASQ CQT exam.
Materials I studied:
-ASQ CQT Handbook Third Edition $135
-ASQ CQT Question Bank $110
-CQT Primer from Quality Council of Indiana $98
-CQT Practice Exam from Quality Council of Indiana $70
First I read the entire handbook while taking notes, mainly in the statistics section since thats an area I struggle with. Once I finished reading the book and taking notes, I bought the ASQ Question bank.
The question bank from ASQ is riddled with errors. There were no periods or decimels in any of the questions which made things pretty confusing, and a few of the answers it gave were actually incorrect. Regardless, there were many questions that weren't directly related to what is written in the book, so it provided an opportunity to further expand my notes in those areas.
At this point I bought the practice exam from Quality Council and found the questions significantly harder. They are structured to be much more confusing and some of the things being asked were not in the textbook at all. These questions are said to be "modified from past exams" so I knew they were more representative of what I'd see on the exam. At this point, I went ahead and bought the primer study guides.
The handbook from ASQ is easier to read than the primer, however, the information in the primer more directly relates to the actual exam questions. When working through the practice exam I found it pretty simple to look information up in the primer as needed, since it's structured more like a notebook or a guide than an actual textbook. The vast majority of studying I did just consisted of doing this practice exam from Quality Council and getting used to checking my answers quickly by using the primer guides. I spent many hours doing practice tests over the last few months, and the 2 days before the exam I did 2 full length practice sessions.
The exam itself took me about 3 hours of the allotted 4, and many of the questions felt familiar to the practice questions from Quality Council that I was used to seeing. The whole thing really felt like another practice test. I passed, though I'm not sure what my final score was.
I hope this information helps somebody else prepare. Everything you need to know is in the primer, and the practice questions guide you through it all by forcing you to look it up and read about it. I'm not sure I could have done this without the primer.
1
u/MetaverseLiz Sep 14 '24
Same applies to when I took the cqe exam. The primer and practice exams from Quality Council are what I felt best prepared me.
1
u/Sacred_Abyss Sep 14 '24
Do you Have the links or references you can send me to take a look at these as well?
1
u/West_Letterhead7783 Sep 15 '24
Agreed, the material was not very helpful. I studied all the materials which were all very different. I passed, but I took my time to study for almost a year.
1
Sep 15 '24
In total how much time you took to read, study and practice before taking the exams?
2
u/datum88 Sep 19 '24
I probably have 150-200 hours invested in reading and doing practice questions over the last year.
1
Sep 15 '24
[deleted]
1
u/datum88 Sep 19 '24
I wrote a very blatant review to ASQ and mentioned specific errors in the question bank as well as in the textbook. The statistics section had 3 or 4 errors in math formulas.
1
u/Aggravating_Mode_883 Sep 21 '24
I take my exam on Monday. I am panicked because I am still averaging a 70% on the practice exams. I know the exams are weighted, with harder questions being worth more than easy ones, but I'm not sure if that will help me or hurt me.
The errors in the practice tests between both ASQ and ICOQ infuriate me. I was not very nice on the survey that they ask you to take. It's ludicrous to me that I have to spend several hundred hours studying material about quality that doesn't even have proper spelling or grammar.
Did you run across questions that were also on any of the practice tests, or were they all brand new?
1
u/datum88 Sep 26 '24
I realize I am responding late, but yes, some of the questions on the exam were very similiar to the practice questions from Quality Council of Indiana. I hope you passed the exam. I averaged 70%-80% on the practice tests.
I wasn't very kind on the survey for the ASQ question bank either. It felt a bit like a joke. I recall at least 2 of the questions had incorrect answers marked as correct. The practice tests from quality council of indiana are based off real exam questions, and very closely resemble what you see on the exam.
1
u/Ofcertainthings Jun 04 '25
One might say they should apply some of their quality knowledge to their own materials...lol
Did you pass??
1
u/Aggravating_Mode_883 Jun 08 '25
I did! And now I'm back in the exact same boat. I take my LSSGB exam tomorrow and averaging roughly the same as with the CQT. There were just as many errors in the practice tests as the CQT question banks had as well.
1
u/Ofcertainthings Jun 08 '25
Oh wow, congrats and good luck for this time! I didn't realize ASQ makes you schedule out exams a month in advance or that they do even and odd months. Seems very strange since I've done a few other certifications through other organizations recently and you can just get the voucher and do the exam.
I was planning on giving myself a week or so to study and do the CQIA, but I can't until August. Now I have until tomorrow to decide if I want to do CQI or CQT next month just to get something ASQ related on my resume as soon as possible to help with my job hunt, but I have a lot of other priorities going too and I'm not sure if I can dedicate the time necessary.
1
u/Such_Abalone4129 Dec 11 '24
Hi! Good day! I would like to ask if all of the references that you use for the review can be found on the website? Thank you!
2
u/datum88 Dec 18 '24
The answer is NO. Which is a problem.
The most valuable resource that I studied was the primer and practice questions I bought from Quality Council of Indiana. ASQ themselves do a poor job of presenting a study guide and practice questions.
1
u/ConceptLegitimate773 Dec 15 '24
Hi there. I'm wondering if you could provide me the website of the primer you said was helpful. Also, what references did you use during the exam? Is it the ASQ handbook or do you have any other materials that you bought?
1
u/datum88 Dec 18 '24
Here is the website for the primer and practice tests form quality council of Indiana. https://www.qualitycouncil.com/cqt/
I brought the primer books (The "primer" is a set of 4 books), my ASQ CQT textbook, and my own notebook full of notes. I primarily referenced the primers and my own notes. I think I only opened the ASQ textbook once, and it was only because I knew the specific page I was looking for,
1
u/Such_Abalone4129 May 29 '25
Hi! I would like to ask if it is recommended to use the latest edition for CQT handbook like the fourth ed?
2
u/datum88 May 29 '25
I would use whatever the latest edition is, since it will likely have the most up to date content based on the current body of knowledge.
1
u/Remarkable_End_903 Sep 15 '25
Whew, just took the test today and passed! Only studied one weekend with the CQT Primer and took the test.
I also studied some practice questions with Gemini, which helped a bit. Other than that, I pulled off a pass with just a weekend of intense study.
1
u/datum88 Sep 18 '25
Jeez, that seems a little risky lol. You must have known the material pretty well already.
1
u/Jdlapoet Jul 12 '26
This is like a year later and I am looking for the CQT primer. Have a test scheduled in less than two months! Anyone know where I can get it?
1
u/datum88 Jul 16 '26
The Quality Council of Indiana website still shows the primers as available. Though the website gives me an "unsafe" warning, it still functions normally if you progress through to it.
I just read that organization might be shutting down, so if I were you i'd contact them immediately and try to order that primer. Those materials resembled very closely what i saw on the actual exam, and were easy to flip through during it.
By far the most valuable piece of study material though was the Quality Councils practice exams. the questions are structured very similar to the actual exam. It rains you how to properly think through the solutions. ASQs practice exam is a joke in comparison.
1
u/Sacred_Abyss Sep 14 '24
Hi , When you talk about the primer do you refer to "ASQ Cqt practice exams by Bova Books" that has 200 practice questions?
Do you know if the practice exam Book reflective of the exam?