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[WSG23] Daily Study Group: Wolfram Language Certification Prep

Join Wolfram U instructors and a cohort of fellow learners in a Daily Study Group series to prepare for the Wolfram Language Level 1 Certification. We will review various topics that are included in the exam to test your proficiency in Wolfram Language programming.

Daily Study Group dates: Feb 13th-17th, 11am-12pm CT (5-6pm GMT)

REGISTER HERE enter image description here

Whether you are a new Wolfram Language user or an expert, join our study group, share your questions and feedback and, finally, take the exam to earn your certification.

Don't forget to share your certificate on social media and tag us #WolframCertified

POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
82 Replies
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Jonathan Bell
Jonathan Bell
Posted 1 year ago

Hi, all.

When I try to open the Level 1 certification exam, all I see is a confusing mess. I've tried opening the exam on different browsers, but the display is the same. Any suggestions?

enter image description here
POSTED BY: Jonathan Bell
J.Edi Gran
J.Edi Gran
Posted 1 year ago

I hope this helps Jonathan... It's maybe only a particular way to propose questions with several sections (Section 1, 2 and 3..in the case of your image). The tinny square maybe looks like something didn't load in the browser...but it's actually ok. I had the same impression the first time I saw it, but in the end it makes sense. enter image description here

POSTED BY: J.Edi Gran
Jonathan Bell
Jonathan Bell
Posted 1 year ago

Thank you, J!

I didn't attend the final session, so the format of the exam was confusing. But, now I understand. I really appreciate your help!
POSTED BY: Jonathan Bell
J.Edi Gran
J.Edi Gran
Posted 1 year ago

Glad to read, Good luck with the exam!
POSTED BY: J.Edi Gran

Hi everybody, I've added the collected Q&A to the downloads folder—this notebook consists of all of the questions and answers from the Q&A panel during the sessions. Luke answered basically every question, but I've added a few answers where they were missing.

I've also added the filled-in "survey" notebook, where I've answered all of the "What would you like to see covered?" questions that you all had. Please do take the time to check out this notebook!
POSTED BY: Arben Kalziqi
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

Thank you, Arben! That's a 9MB notebook -- a tremendous amount of work.
POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt

There are some images and graphics in there, so don't give me too much credit :)
POSTED BY: Arben Kalziqi
Alex Kuznetsov
Alex Kuznetsov
Posted 2 years ago

Where is this famed download folder? I never get any notifications about it.

POSTED BY: Alex Kuznetsov

There should be a link in all of the reminder emails that were sent your way, I believe.
POSTED BY: Arben Kalziqi
Alex Kuznetsov
Alex Kuznetsov
Posted 2 years ago

I get the reminders but I never get the links to download folder.
POSTED BY: Alex Kuznetsov
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

Yes. All e-mails from the Wolfram U Team for the certification study group have a "Download Study Group materials" link in them.

Is mention of the URL for that download dir verboten in the community forum? Why?
POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt
Alex Kuznetsov
Alex Kuznetsov
Posted 2 years ago

I found it. I run two emails for this program. One gets reminders and the other gets notification. Sorry to bother you.
POSTED BY: Alex Kuznetsov

No problem!
POSTED BY: Arben Kalziqi

I think it's not strictly verboten (though we do want to keep the quiz links off of here), but we generally don't post them here because the idea is that the materials should be limited to people who sign up for and attend (or watch recordings of) the study group. That's my sense, at least, but I might be entirely wrong.
POSTED BY: Arben Kalziqi
J.Edi Gran
J.Edi Gran
Posted 2 years ago

IOh...there's a Ram there also!..my mediocre brain!!
POSTED BY: J.Edi Gran
J.Edi Gran
J.Edi Gran
Posted 2 years ago

I believe I've started to barely grasp the value of Mathematica and the Wolfram Language. 2 months ago I had no clue about the existence of Mathematica or WL, and now I'm completely hooked with the technology, and I didn't know why!. As a newcomer to this arena, I must confess that I believe there's a central omission in all this process of explaining Mathematica or WL..Kind of a "missing basic warning for the newcomer". This training is great in the sense that the "operation" of what is in there is exercised, so one feels accomplishing something real with the language. I believe most people is OK with that, and that not something to blame, as that's practical and useful. But I can't help this feeling of "why they needed to change the way of doing things when creating Mathematica"..it was kind of a permanent question in the back of my mind. Now, to this point..and most by the help of the referenced book provided by Arben y feel the WL like knowledge representation language, where concepts, relations between concepts, transformation between concepts are possible, no matter whether those concepts are mathematical concepts, or not. I feel it now like a "linguistic" tool in the sense that units of meaning can be processed into another units of meaning by transformation rules, I just don't know whether this was "accidental" by the need of processing symbolic transformations, but it is in there. I can't even express my ideas clear here as I'm still figuring out the real possibilities with WL and Mathematica but what is clear to my is that this is a completely / dramatically different animal (if I may use the expression). Sorry for the long "Philosophy" but my point is that somewhere in the introductory stages of the training, would it be great to provide clues on how dramatically different mathematica is and how manage the "learning anxiety" of trying to make Mathematica fits were it will never fit becuase uses way different approaches...

POSTED BY: J.Edi Gran

This would be an interesting video to watch where Stephen Wolfram explains "What is the Wolfram Language?" ..... " a knowledge-based language"

POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Edi, this is very true and that is why it is called "Wolfram Language".Even its Logo, the symbol unifying Wolf and Ram hints to the idea of grand (apocalyptical :) ) unification. Long years and many brilliant followers to Stephen WolfRam !

enter image description here
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for reporting the issues you faced in submitting the Level 1 exam. This has also been a great learning opportunity for us and we plan to work on updating the setup to make it a smoother experience for people trying to take the Level 1 exam.

Till then if you would like confirmation of your grade or certification status, please send an email to wolfram-u@wolfram.com. We should be able to get back to you fairly quickly with your grades (if your submission came through fine). We will send out shareable links to your certificates in a couple of weeks.

Thank you for your patience, Abrita
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
John Davidson
John Davidson
Posted 2 years ago

I also completed the exam over the last weekend (twice) and clicked on the “Grade Me” button. Nothing happed either time. What should I try? Thanks to all for an outstanding course. Cheers!
POSTED BY: John Davidson

My "Grade Me" button pressed didn't show any action. By controlling my answers I found one option for answering a question wasn't chosen ( no black point in an answering circle). Good luck and knowledge to all
POSTED BY: Rudolf Brandstetter
William Weller
William Weller
Posted 2 years ago

I have a "Dog ate my homework story". I started taking the certification exam on Saturday afternoon. I returned to the exam this morning and finished it. upon pressing the Grade My Exam button, I was surprised to find nothing happened. I pressed it a few more times and nothing happen. I then tried to submit an inquiry and my exam disappeared. I can't recover it. If need be, I will take the exam again, but I want to make sure this doesn't happen again to me. Help.
POSTED BY: William Weller

S... happened to me before. It's a good idea to do it first in a local notebook.

I could not find a neat way to download the file, and embedded the statements of the problems as the (captured) images. In addition, you can include a lot of extra material, thoughts and ideas. And, after it's done, enter the answers in the original test file. I hope this can help.

POSTED BY: Michael Partensky
William Weller
William Weller
Posted 2 years ago

Thanks Michael,

I appreciate the advice. I'm going to try again today.
POSTED BY: William Weller
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

Arben was discussing this at timestamp 1:17:00 of Friday's presentation. He said that he had finished addressing the first two days of questions. He said there was an error in grabbing the survey data for Day 3 but he was going back and figuring that out. He said he would post a message to this group when he was done. I don't think it's been posted yet.
POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt
Updating Name
Updating Name
Posted 2 years ago

Where is the materials folder with all of the questions from the students?
POSTED BY: Updating Name

The Q&A digest will be uploaded to the same folder that contains all the notebooks for this study group series.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Hi;

After completing the exam, how do you find/obtain the certificate?

Thanks,

Mitch Sandlin
POSTED BY: Mitchell Sandlin
Glen Deering
Glen Deering
Posted 2 years ago

Upon clicking the button "Grade my Exam" at the bottom, it only takes a moment or two for the results to come back. The score is published in a box and there is a link with simple instructions to claim your certificate if you've passed the exam. Once generated, you can download the certificate to your computer.
POSTED BY: Glen Deering

Thanks for the very clear explanation Glen.

We are also planning to send out shareable links to online versions of your certificates that can be easily posted on LinkedIn. We will send these out over the duration of the next few weeks and would request you to tag us with #WolframCertified when you share your certificate.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Hi Glen;

I took and passed the exam on Wednesday, but I don't recall seeing the other button to claim the certificate and consequently didn't press it. So, since I didn't press the button to claim the certificate, how do I go about downloading the certificate to my computer?

Thanks,

Mitch Sandlin
POSTED BY: Mitchell Sandlin

Hi Mitch, Can I ask you to get in touch with us at wolfram-u@wolfram.com? If your submission went through correctly we will be able to send you your certificate.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
Glen Deering
Glen Deering
Posted 2 years ago

I just submitted my exam for graded and passed. But I would love to know which ones were marked wrong and why. I worked each problem in a separate notebook and thought I would get 100%. Is there a way to find out?

Thanks. --Glen
POSTED BY: Glen Deering
Glen Deering
Glen Deering
Posted 2 years ago

Any takers on this question?

Thanks!
POSTED BY: Glen Deering
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

The spirit of the agreement is to keep questions and answers confidential. I don't see how anyone could assist you without you or the person helping you (or both) violating that agreement. You could just do the Frozen Thing -- let it go. Or keep staring at your quiz to try to figure it out. There was one error that many could have made on a cloud question; Arbita noted that yesterday.

I know there's a whole bunch of material we've covered that I have not mastered. I love getting 100%, but I think a less-than-perfect score was a better reflection of reality.
POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt

Unfortunately with the current setup we are unable to provide individual feedback on your responses. We can only report the grade obtained.

We will consider this feature in a future updated of the exam.We may or may not be able to include the feedback.

POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
Dave Middleton
Dave Middleton
Posted 2 years ago

This post ended up in the wrong conversation.
POSTED BY: Dave Middleton
Dave Middleton
Dave Middleton
Posted 2 years ago

Thank you Abrita. Now I can preproduce the plots.

Note that half of the plots are each other's Inverse (reversed axes). If we are looking for an overview of all uniquely mapped features we should have (n^2-n)/2 plots i.e. for n=4 features, this gives us 6 plots, for example:

data = ExampleData[{"MachineLearning", "FisherIris"}, "Data"];
data /. Rule[x__, #] :> x /. Rule[x__, _] :> Nothing & /@ {"setosa", 
   "versicolor", "virginica"};
ListPlot[%[[All, All, #]], 
   PlotMarkers -> {{Red, 6}, {Green, 6}, {Blue, 6}}, 
   Frame -> 
    True] & /@ (Sort /@ Tuples[Range[4], 2] /. {x_, x_} :> Nothing // 
   Union)
POSTED BY: Dave Middleton

Yes that's true. Thanks for sharing.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
J.Edi Gran
J.Edi Gran
Posted 2 years ago

I know this Study Group is for "Level 1".. Is there any place where all the "Levels" are presented , and the intended purposes of such? Thanks in advance!
POSTED BY: J.Edi Gran

This page has information about the various certification options available for Wolfram Language skills: https://www.wolfram.com/wolfram-u/courses/wolfram-language/
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

This page has information about the various certification options available for Wolfram Language skills: https://www.wolfram.com/wolfram-u/courses/wolfram-language/

That page contains links for the Wolfram Language L1 Certification, but also for the Mathematica L1 Certification. What's the difference? Is there value in taking the Mathematica test, too?

I'm guessing this is a reflection of a shift away from the word "Mathematica" to "Wolfram [xxx]", and that the material is essentially the same. Since I usually learn something when taking quizzes here, I think it would be a good idea.

The name-change to "Wolfram Language" is useful. For better or worse, it's far easier to get useful results when searching on "wolfram [xxx]" than "mathematica".
POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt

Both exams test the same concepts and skills. We would recommend taking one or the other.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Thank you, Phil. M
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky
Dave Middleton
Dave Middleton
Posted 2 years ago

Abrita,

In your "Classification" notebook of the second day session there is a plot with "A visual exploration using a scatter plot matrix that compares each of the four features against the others shows some separation between the species based on the features." (see screenshot).

I can't reproduce the plot somehow. I understand that the sepal- and petal- length and width have been plotted on the y-axis, but what parameter did you use for the x-axis?

Attachment

Attachments:
Screenshot 2023-...jpg
POSTED BY: Dave Middleton

Hi Dave, I created a matrix of scatterplots so you could visualize a scatter plot of every feature against every other feature. You will find the associated code in the lesson notebook at https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/online-courses/multiparadigm-data-science/visual-exploration.html

Just a Grid of the ListPlots, with individual ListPlots shwoing the scatterplot of sepal length v. sepal width or sepal length v. petal length and so on...

Hope this helps.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

I caught a personal Wolfram Language misunderstanding just in time! i thought that RuleDelayed was typographically entered with ":->" (i.e., a colon, a dash, and a greater-then sign). It is not! The way to enter RuleDelayed is ":>". I noticed because I was getting a nonsense error and I stopped getting it after fixing my typo (or maybe my thinko).

There were two ways I could have detected my error quicker. One was noticing the syntax highlighting in the Wolfram Notebook when entering the 3 characters. The second was the lack of an entry for ":->" in the help documentation. There is an entry for ":>", but there isn't one for ":->". Aha! That should have been a clue. I'll remember that in the future: if unclear what one of the shorthand combinations means, then type that literal combination into the help docs search bar.

POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt
Updating Name
Updating Name
Posted 2 years ago

I'm new to Wolfram Technologies, and I'd like to learn resources from "behind de scenes" related to the language. I see most of the presentations are focussed on "operation" of sets functions, but, is there any reference explaining the composing concepts and architectural elements of Wolfram Language?
POSTED BY: Updating Name

You might find these notes helpful:
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
J.Edi Gran
J.Edi Gran
Posted 2 years ago

Thanks a lot!
POSTED BY: J.Edi Gran

If you're okay with an older, barer-bones look, you might also consider this excellent text: https://www.mathprogramming-intro.org/book/Book.html
POSTED BY: Arben Kalziqi
J.Edi Gran
J.Edi Gran
Posted 2 years ago

Oh! ..this is excellent!. Thank you very much!
POSTED BY: J.Edi Gran

Enjoy! :)
POSTED BY: Arben Kalziqi
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

I suggest a paper that the late Joel Moses published back in 2008 on Macsyma and the origins of symbolic computing at MIT. Back in the late 1970s, there were four mighty DEC PDP-10 machines on the 9th Floor of 545 Tech Square. MIT-MC (a DEC KL10) was the host for Macsyma. It was accessible via the ARPANet and was used commercially for research -- a lot of military stuff, but other things, too. Original implementations were in LISP; Moses noted he wanted to do them in assembler. Stephen Wolfram was familiar with Macsyma from his graduate work at Caltech.

Those were exciting times with fast evolution. Dialup terminals in the late 1970s were at 300 baud (30cps) but quickly shifted to 1200 baud. In the 80s, Symbolics started making Lisp Machines, and their Macsyma licenses were a big seller for a few years. After PCs gained computational capabilities, the market pretty well dried up for those big Lisp-specialty machines. It's still hard for my brain to comprehend that today's Raspberry Pi machine with Mathematica can vastly exceed the capability of those behemoth computers.

One note from the lessons this week: Arben frequently speaks of mapping in the Wolfram Language. Mapping is a fundamental feature of LISP (and many other languages). This page shows mapcar() from Lisp. It also shows lambda expressions: the way that one did functional computing in that earlier language. This course is excellent for reminding one of the timeless concepts from computation learned many years ago.
POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt

POSTED BY: Zbigniew Kabala

Thanks for this! Explanations like this are always helpful to understanding.
POSTED BY: Kari Grafton
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

I'm a student in the class, too. The Notebooks are in https://amoeba.wolfram.com/index.php/s/mTxiwj3JmLiLbFY . There are 4 folders -- one for each day.

The prerecorded video presentations appear to come from "The Wolfram Language: Fast Introduction for Programmers".

The links were announced in the video today, but they were not announced at the beginning of the presentation. I opened the Bigmarker recording link and skipped to about 80% of the way into the video. All of the links were then visible on the "chat" window of the replay. You open up chat in the replay by hitting the "chat replay" button near the lower right corner of the Bigmarker replay session.

HTH.

POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt
Alex Kuznetsov
Alex Kuznetsov
Posted 2 years ago

thanks Phil.
POSTED BY: Alex Kuznetsov
Alex Kuznetsov
Alex Kuznetsov
Posted 2 years ago

Where can I find the notebooks for the study sessions?
POSTED BY: Alex Kuznetsov

Hi Alex—there's a link at the top of the chat panel every day called "Course Materials". This should also be linked in the reminder emails that everybody registered for this study group should be getting.
POSTED BY: Arben Kalziqi

Dear Arbita, I took a few Wolfram U classes and enjoyed them. All classes included quizzes and, some of them, the additional sets of problems. Answering the questions, solving the problems, and attending the classes was always sufficient for receiving class certification. How is "Wolfram language certificated" different? How is it related to those certificates? All the best. Michael
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky

Dear Michael,

"Wolfram Technology Certified Level I in Wolfram Language" is a certification offered by Wolfram Research to highlight the proficiency of the recipient in programming with the Wolfram Language.

This study group is intended to help you prepare for and then successfully take the Level 1 exam, that is required for this certification. We hope to discuss some topics that we feel may not have been sufficiently discussed in other study groups. We also plan to go through some sample questions representative of the questions you will find on the Level 1 exam.

POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Hi Abrita,

Can you tell me how to join this discussion group, so that it appears under "My Groups"?

Cheers, Jörn
POSTED BY: Jörn Kersten

Hi Jörn, Once you have replied to a post, the thread should start appearing in the "My Discussions" section.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Hi Jörn,
You can also follow one of the groups this post belongs to, preferably Wolfram U group: -
https://community.wolfram.com/content?curTag=wolfram%20u

After opening the link above, follow the group by clicking the button "Join" near the group's name

enter image description here

Now you should see Wolfram U group in "My Groups" page, and this discussion will be mostly in the top of the first page of the group.

On top of that, you will get notified every time this group gets a new post.
POSTED BY: Ahmed Elbanna

Study Group begins Monday Feb 13. See you there!
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

First of all, many thanks for the excellent lecture on ML. It and the interactive approach of Mathematica gave me a kickoff finally to start something practical on my own.

Unfortunately, it was no success. Can someone help me? The notebook is attached.

Attachments:
936239898.nb
POSTED BY: Peter Liedermann

Removing the error
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky

Hi Peter, This should be a quick fix. You want to use single square brackets, not double. Double square brackets is reserved for the Part function.

Once you have trained your classifier cfun, you want to use it with single square brackets as follows:

cfun[{3,4,5}]

Also make sure you enclose the comment in the very first line of your notebook within (* *) as follows: 

raw = Import["matest.csv", "Data"]  (* four columns of integers *)

The // is resrved for post-fix notation in Wolfram Language

POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
Updating Name
Updating Name
Posted 2 years ago

Thank you very much, I am getting results now and can make further experiments on this. I am looking forward to the next ML course with great interest
POSTED BY: Updating Name

Hi, Arbita. I requested the exam but did not realize that it was a 1 week deadline. Can I use this one for practice, and then request a new version when time allows? Thanks. Michael
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky

Yes, that shouldn't be a problem. The only caveat is: Candidates may request this assessment up to three times within a six-month interval.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Thank you.
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky

Abrita, after I got the access o the exam notebook, how can I download it? Than you. Michael.
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky

You can try the following:

nb = NotebookOpen[<url of your cloud notebook>];
NotebookSave[nb]

However we will encourage you to submit the exam from the cloud and not from the desktop notebook.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

This did not work for me.

nb2 = NotebookOpen[<URL of my cloud-quiz notebook>];

NotebookSave[nb2, "/Users/pae/downloads/bugg2.nb"];

I wound up with a file "bugg2.txt" in the downloads dir.

This is not a show-stopper for me. It would be nice but is not essential to download a copy. Does it work for you to download a quiz from the Wolfram Cloud and save to your desktop?
POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt

Sorry it seems we need CloudObject in thereL

NotebookOpen[CloudObject[<url of your cloud notebook]]
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Thank you. I downloaded the file and entered the questions except for the last one (the last button was unclickable).
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky

Hi, Abrita. The issue with submission is resolved. Thank you. M
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky

Notebook from the "Building an App in 60 Seconds" talk has been added to the Day 4 folder.
POSTED BY: Abrita Chakravarty

Removed the repeated entry.
POSTED BY: Michael Partensky
Phil Earnhardt
Phil Earnhardt
Posted 2 years ago

This happened to me. I just filled out the answers I had saved locally, clicked "Grade my exam" again, and I got my grade. I might have clicked the Grade button a couple of times -- with a 10 second pause between clicks.

I presume the whole clear-the-exam-form thing happens when the client loses connectivity to the Wolfram Cloud Server. It looks like a rather squirrelly design; it wold be nicer if the answer-selecting functionality happened locally and a new connection was established when you attempted to submit your exam for grading. Maybe Wolfram is paranoid that someone could manipulate something if the code were running on your local PC. So many things are delightful in the Wolfram computation environment; this one is the opposite.

I guess the Wolfram Research US crew is off participating in President's Day celebrations today.
POSTED BY: Phil Earnhardt
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