Most interviewers will be interested in your willingness to volunteer your services. Do you have a history as a volunteer? You don't need to have volunteered in the horticultural field. Many times gardeners want to take the course to improve their gardening skills, with is normal. Are you willing to use those new skills to help the gardening public by volunteering in one of the Master Gardener projects? Al

Do you mean the actual written test that you take? Or do you mean the interview?

Don't worry about the written test. It covers a little bit of everything so you really can't prepare for it. I thought I knew pretty much about gardening, but that test covered a lot of stuff that I just didn't know.

The important test is the one you take AFTER you complete the training. You will do much, much better on that test - it's a take-home test and all the answers should be in your manual. Good luck.

I don't think there is a standard test for all groups. In fact, the first two groups I was in didn't require any test that I had to take. In smaller groups the Agent may not be too picky if he really needs the assistance while in a larger group a particular talent may be needed or personality and personal objectives may come into play. I'm sure a basic knowledge of gardening is a first requirement but it won't the the only thing being looked at. The ability to work with a group comes to mind. Sandy

Is there any uniformity with testing even within states? I'm in PA, and our "final" was not a take-home exam. Don't know about you guys, but I would think that some sort of continuity should be maintained at least on a state-wide basis. And it probably wouldn't be all that bad if there was a measure of uniformity on a national basis, either.

The way it sounds to me is that these programs differ vastly not only from state to state, but from county to county in the very same state.

I used to work on developing the final test. Two of us would sit down with the farm advisor and go over the questions for previous years trying to be sure they were relevant and could not have more one RIGHT answer. Each year when the test was given some questions would be a problem. We needed to be sure all the questions could be answered from the material presented in the course. The course material differs from county to county as well as from state to state so a national test I do not think will ever be possible. Al

I did not even have to take a written test but I did have answer(written paper and sent to the extension office) questions about various garden situations and discuss why I wanted to be a MG and what are some of the volunteer things that I have done.

I am a Master Gardener in Florida and yes, each County does operate a bit differently. The materials concentrated on in Central Florida would have been different both to the north and south of us. The agent devises his programs for relevancy to our clients and that is as it must be. We do however visit the other Counties and take ongoing educational courses wherever they are offered because we are such a mobile population, and because we can just never know enough.
I have been active for almost 15 years and wouldn't have missed a day of the experience.

Thanks everyone for your insights. I took the screening exam which was the same exam one takes at the end of the course, and filled out a questionnaire that was focused mostly on listing and prioritizing my volunteer intersests. All this back in mid-May. Then I waited...and waited.

Finally got my appointment for an interview confirmed by post-card last week, and I've got the 10 minute interview this afternoon. So I guess I'm on the definiite short-list.

We'd all been given an orientation to the program and an opportunity to hear from some real live MGs when we took the screening exam. The Lehigh Valley MG program looks very, very good - great curriculum (from Penn State), great extension services, and many great volunteer ops. (Rodale's around here, too and they host events, call for volunteers, and even influences - to a certain extent - the pest and disease management approaches of less chemically-averse agricultural entities like Penn State's agricultural programs and extension services.)

Thanks again,

cranebill