From: Colin Barber (Colin.Barber@telewest.co.uk)
Date: Sun Sep 08 2002 - 08:47:04 GMT-3
There has been a problem with my groupstudy access over the last 9 days but
hopefully everything is working now.
I took my second lab attempt in Brussels on Monday 2nd September. Recently
there seems to have been a large number of people gaining their numbers and
unfortunately, for anybody wishing that the numbers would stop going up so
quickly, I haven't slowed them down having been awarded #10086.
It took me 4.5 hours to get home and my result was waiting for me. Looking
at the time when my email was received my result was available 40 minutes
after the lab finished. In fact not taking into account the 1 hour time
difference between the UK and central Europe I received my result 20 minutes
before I finished!
I set myself two targets this year after passing the written exam at the end
of December 2001. The first one was to pass the lab this year and the second
was to get a number under 10000. Well I achieved the main one and missed out
on the second by a few weeks.
On my route to achieving my number I went through the Cisco Career
certifications:
6/2000 CCNA
12/2000 CCDA
5/2001 640-504
6/2001 640-505
9/2001 640-503
9/2001 640-506 and CCNP
11/2001 CCDP
12/2001 CCIE written
9/2002 CCIE lab
I think that the career certifications help in studying for the CCIE,
certainly the written exam, however you also realise that what you learnt
for the CCNP is not a in-depth as you thought at the time.
I have a few bits of advise for people attempting the lab, most of which has
been posted before:
Make sure you have read the document CD and use it all the time during
studying. There is a lot of information contained on that CD, if you have
seen the hard copy version you will know what I mean, and therefore do not
underestimate the time required to read it all.
Read as many different books as possible. Most of them contain duplicate
information and the last books you read will probably contain 99% of
information that you already know, however even if you learn just one or two
new commands or a new way of looking at something then it has been worth
reading that book. I stuck mainly with the Cisco Press books.
Also use CCO for your studying. There is an enormous amount of information
there and it's free.
During the lab use your lunch break. 5 or 10 minutes before lunch look and
the next couple of questions. You can then use your time to start to solve
those questions. If you just go to lunch thinking about your current
question you may solve that in 5 minutes and then you just sit there for 25
minutes wanting to get back into the lab.
Don't worry about aliases. If you have done enough studying then you will be
typing in common commands quickly enough. If you read the questions fully,
understand what is required and know how to implement it then you will have
more than enough time. I would think most people that pass would have 1 to 2
hours at the end of the exam to go back and check your work. Saving 0.3s
typing 'si' instead of 'sho ip rou' is not going to give you enough time if
you don't understand the question or know the commands to configure it.
If you get stuck on a question and the next question does not rely on it
then move on as quickly as possible. You can always come back to it later.
This is where you lose time. You have the points value for the questions and
therefore you can gauge the amount of time you should be spending on it.
Finish the rest of the lab and come back to any questions you haven't
completed and use the CD if needed.
Save your configs frequently
Ask the proctors questions. They are good guys and will help you as much as
the are allowed.
Regards,
Colin
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