From: Sal Carnevale (scarneva@xxxxxxx)
Date: Sun Dec 03 2000 - 14:41:14 GMT-3
Just got back from RTP where I passed the lab on my first attempt!
I finished day 1 by 3:00, and used the rest of the time to check and
recheck my work. When I returned on day 2, I was blown away when
the proctor told me that I had no errors on my day 1 lab!!!!!
Day 2 was tougher, but I still finished 1 hour early. That gave me time
to look things over again. After lunch, I was informed that I had missed
an item that was so trivial that I hadn't bothered to recheck it. Going
into
the troubleshooting section, I had lost only 4 points! That took a lot of
the
pressure off, and made the troubleshooting section short -- I had enough
points to pass after about an hour into it. The proctor gave me a yellow
post-it note with #6538 on it!
I am elated to have made it through, but I truly didn't expect to on my
first try. I even considered booking an early return flight from RTP (like
2:00)
when I was planning the trip (very glad I didn't!!).
My reading preparation consisted mostly of the Caslow book, and the BGP
and DLSW design guides (on Cisco's web site), as well as various config
guides off of the Cisco site or documentation CD. I am also fortunate
enough to
work for a company that paid for a bunch of training classes. The most
helpful of these by far was the ECP1 course taught by Bruce Caslow.
If you can take only one class, this is the one. Also helpful was
CCCI's (now Mentor Technologies) OSPF/BGP course.
The single most helpful element of my preparation, however, was the
100 or so hours of rack time that I had just prior to the lab. All of the
bread-and-butter stuff was fresh in my mind, and I could slam out the
basic IP connectivity and routing protocols/redistribution in a blink.
That gave me time to work on the other stuff and recheck my work,
where I found a few things that would have cost some points.
Also, the importance of good documentation/diagrams during the lab
cannot be overlooked. It helped make the cabling and configuration
much quicker and less error-prone. It also helped make troubleshooting
simpler. Be sure to practice doing this efficiently as well.
Another thing that made me feel more confident going into the exam
was that I spent quite a bit of time looking over the documentation CD,
and located the topics on it that I didn't feel 100% on. The CD will be
your friend on day 2, and knowing how to navigate it quickly helped me
keep my cool when I ran across topics I was unsure about.
I would also like to thank this group, as it has been a very valuable
resource.
While I've been mostly in "lurk" mode, I've learned a tremendous
amount from it and will try to support it in the future, now that I have
free time on my hands :-). The questions posted to this group challenged
my knowledge and drove me to research certain topics and practice
their application.
My advice to those about to take the lab exam is to be sure to maintain a
positive attitude before and during the exam, don't let it get to you. It
can
be done. Most importantly, try to take your mind off of it before you go to
bed
the night before each test day, so you can get a good night's sleep.
Best regards,
Sal Carnevale, CCIE #6538
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