Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Introduction to the CSWA

The Certified SOLIDWORKS Associate exam is geared as the entry level exam to test your SOLIDWORKS knowledge.  SOLIDWORKS recommends you have about 3 months of usage under your belt, have gone through all the tutorials and have taken the Essentials class.

There is a link to a sample exam located here.  Click on the Sample CSWA Exam link to access it.

The test is limited to 3 hours in length and you have to score a 70% in order to pass.  If you happen to need to retake the exam, you will have to wait 30 days between testings.

You will cover topics such as:

  • Sketch entities - lines, rectangles, circles, arcs, ellipses, centerlines
  • Sketch tools - offset, convert, trim
  • Sketch relations
  • Boss and cut features - extrudes, revolves, sweeps, lofts
  • Fillets and chamfers
  • Linear, circular, and fill patterns
  • Dimensions
  • Feature conditions – start and end
  • Mass properties
  • Materials
  • Inserting components
  • Standard mates - coincident, parallel, perpendicular, tangent, concentric, distance, angle
  • Reference geometry – planes, axis, mate references
  • Drawing views
  • Annotations

Marie Planchard, Director of Education Community recently told me that over 70% of CSWA exams are coming from colleges.  They have further developed a special CSWA-Academic Certification that carries a bit more industry clout.  

Michael Puckett, Senior Manager, World Wide Certification Program SOLIDWORKS, goes on to say that while both exams are the same, the CSWA-Academic exam is only given under a proctored environment and is only offered by academic institutions that are part of the CSWP Provider Program.  

Both  Marie and Michael confirm that the test is given under rigid guidelines and the provider must meet certain requirements in order to be able to offer the CSWA-Academic.  The test taker that passes the CSWA-Academic is given a special certificate with the testing institutions name on it.

As the college semester in the US is starting to wind down, I want to try and cover a lot of tips and tricks that can help everyone pass the CSWA, either the standard or academic.

Let me know if you have any questions by posting a reply.  Otherwise, I'll try and burn through this exam and explain some of the concepts.

Thanks,

Bryan

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