From: Hank Burgos (hburgos@xxxxxxx)
Date: Mon Jul 19 1999 - 21:59:16 GMT-3
There was a certain level of comfort in reading this... Thanks!
Robert Thompson wrote:
> Since people are talking about this "trip to hell" that is the lab, I'll
> throw my $0.02 in from my lab experience.
>
> 1) Don't panic although you will want to. By that I mean you *must* remain
> effectivly solving your problems. Don't thrash around going over old
> ground that dosen't work. Be able to zero in on solutions, or recognise
> something is taking too long and skip it. Time management is a key to
> victory, as others have observed.
>
> 2) Don't be afraid to use the CD and know where to look for things. I had
> as many as 4 searches at a time going and would check them every so often
> to see if they had a clue to what I was having trouble with. It costs
> little time to start a search I found, and if I framed the parameters
> well I sometimes got the clue I needed to break the problem ("Hey! That
> command - I remember that practice lab scenario now!" type stuff).
>
> 3) Be ready. You *will* forget things, you *will* have a tendancy to start
> to panic. The pressure is intense but if you are ready for it and the
> performance reduction you will suffer under that pressure you will do ok.
> Many failed CCIEs have said "...and I knew the answer but it just didn't
> come...." or "....I missed reading part of the question, so I just got
> it wrong...." which says to me they were suffering stress problems with
> all the bad tricks your brain plays on you. If you are compensating
> for this you will do better. I forgot things, went blank, etc, and it was
> just another problem I had to cope with.
>
> 4) When you need to, ask your proctor. If you frame your questions right
> you can get a lot as even negative information can be usefull. One of my
> most usefull questions was to quickly describe how I understood a
> troublesome question (the ones I had trouble understanding Cisco's
> version of English) and ask "have I understood the question correctly?".
> Often the answer was "yes" but sometimes "no". This told me really quickly
> what I had to rethink - before I'd got into attempting the config. I wasn't
> into wasting time if I hadn't understood the question. Didn't stop me
> getting some tragically wrong, but stopped me going off in the wrong
> direction because of a misunderstanding. The proctor is a very usefull
> tool if you can make use of him without trying to overstep the bounds.
>
> I passed first time not because I knew everything (I only properly
> understood BGP at a lab level in the practice lab beforehand - my time
> pressure was pretty tight), but because I didn't waste my time in
> there, I put every minute to use. Which incuded time where I simply
> stopped and made myself read the exam and *think* for awhile before
> starting on a problem. I got stuff I'd never seen before and for
> some of the things I'd had, it was more complex than anything I'd
> ever practiced. My lab was last March and I hope it was the toughened-up
> lab because I can't imagine what it'd be like made even harder.
> Still it would be great to try such a harder lab, I learned a lot in
> mine and would have liked to be able to do all the lab exams just to
> try my hand at the problems. Problem solvers pass the CCIE lab,
> anybody else fails I think.
>
> It is doable, and is really a lot of fun.
>
> I think most people fail not because they don't know their stuff, but
> they have all the reduced performance that comes with such pressure -
> forgetting things, not working efficently, etc. And most people pass
> later as it is then a familiar enviroment and they handle it better.
>
> For everyone headed to their labs, good luck and don't forget to have
> fun doing it.
>
> And yeah, I got a bigger DLSw scenario that I'd ever seen (or imagined)
> before like Hank & others. I got a lot of other protocols also, even
> a non-IP protocol in my first day (for about 10% of the first day marks -
> I was surprised), so be ready to face anything.
>
> ---------------------------------
> Robert Thompson, CCIE #4500, MCSE
> Business Integration Solutions
> 44 Ellingworth Pde, Box Hill 3128
> Australia
> Office +61 3 9899 5111
> FAX +61 3 9899 7671
> Mobile 0407 368 154
> Internet: rthompson@busint.com.au
> ---------------------------------
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com]On Behalf Of
> > Hank Burgos
> > Sent: Monday, 19 July 1999 2:36
> > To: Hammond
> > Cc: Scott Morris; ccielab@groupstudy.com
> > Subject: Re: CCIE Lab
> >
> >
> > My thoughts exactly!!! Although my hardware was operational, I
> > did get the DLSW
> > from hell.
> >
> > Hammond wrote:
> >
> > > Man, can I relate to your comment about your expectations on
> > your first try.
> > > I never figured myself for average either and by the time I
> > went to the exam
> > > I could do re-distribution in my sleep (as a matter of fact,
> > I'm almost sure
> > > I DID do it in my sleep). I concentrated on BGP the week
> > before so much I
> > > was really proud of myself. "Dude, I thought, you're there". I was so
> > > confident. I looked at the lab. "Hey, I thought, I know this
> > stuff". Then
> > > I noticed a Token ring switch. what the *** is this? Oh well,
> > I'll look it
> > > up. Let's see, in the product guide,. Whoops, no that's sales shit. damn
> > > where did they hide that? Oh yeah, read, read, read... ok,
> > next. I breezed
> > > thru the first few scenarios. Then a serial port went south
> > and I spent a
> > > lot of time convincing myself it really was broke. The proctor
> > was pretty
> > > cool once I told him. Shoulda called sooner, he said. Oh yeah, They also
> > > happened to be the highest number interface so OSPF was pretty
> > hosed too...
> > > Let see, get rid of all OSPF statements and do it in 5 minutes,
> > I can still
> > > do it, I thought. I looked up and I had 1 hour to go and a BGP scenario
> > > from hell to do. That's pretty much when I melted.... just one
> > more hour.
> > >
> > > That was 2 weeks ago, and I'm almost ready to try and get a lab
> > together and
> > > try again. A lot of people told me that you learn a lot on the
> > first trip
> > > to the lab and I thought they were just making excuses for
> > themselves. Turns
> > > out I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I did learn a lot. It's doable.
> > It can be
> > > beat. Hopefully, by me in a couple months.
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: Scott Morris <SMorris@tele-tech.com>
> > > To: 'Ben Rife' <brife@bignet.net>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
> > > Sent: Thursday, July 15, 1999 6:54 PM
> > > Subject: RE: CCIE Lab
> > >
> > > >snip snip snip>
> > >
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