From: Cary Anderson (caryande@cisco.com)
Date: Fri Jan 10 2003 - 03:18:20 GMT-3
The following was the impression of a person who attended a recently held QA
session with Bill Parkhurst and a bunch of Cisco SE's. Thought it might be
helpful!
Cary
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* The #1 reason for failure is lack of knowledge.
* Study concepts. Do not try to memorize configurations or scenarios.
For example, understand how an OSPF DR is chosen. The lab proctors
generally power cycle all of the equipment BEFORE grading. This could
change your OSPF DR if you didn't configure the router you want to always be
the DR properly.
* Practice each concept on its own. For example, practice OSPF
WITHOUT also turning on BGP. This will ensure that any behaviours you see
are attributed ONLY to OSPF and you don't confuse a behaviour that was
caused by BGP to be an OSPF behaviour.
* Practice Labs should be used for self evaluation. Time yourself
when using a practice lab to simulate the CCIE Lab Exam experience. Only
use the practice lab 1 time.
* The #2 reason for failure is anxiety.
* To reduce anxiety, travel to your lab location early the day before.
Visit the CCIE lab facilities the day before. Introduce yourself to the
CCIE lab proctor the day before. Doing this will keep you from fretting
over how to find the lab the day of your lab. Also, meeting your lab
proctor is a big help.
* Have confidence in your abilities. If you have been studying the
technology and concepts, you are ready for ANY scenario. The primary R&S
concepts include Layer 2 switching, VLANs, OSPF, FR, BGP, Multicast & ISDN.
There is NO MPLS on the exam. IGRP and IPX have been removed from the exam.
* Practice good test taking skills:
* Skim the exam for the first 5 to 10 minutes once you get it.
* Configure all L2 requirements FIRST.
* Configure everything else in the exam that you know SECOND.
* Use documentation or help commands to configure the remaining exam
requirements that you are not familiar with LAST...remember this is a Pass
or Fail exam. You only need 80 points. Not all 100 points.
* If you believe you have a hardware problem, do NOT spend more than
10 minutes trying to fix the hardware. Ask the lab proctor to investigate
the issue. The lab proctor will stop the clock and send you away while
he/she checks the hardware. If it is a hardware problem, the proctor will
resolve and restart your clock. If it is NOT a hardware problem, you will
at least KNOW it is not a hardware problem. On the other hand, if you have
a hardware problem that you spend 90 minutes trying to resolve, you will not
regain this time after you and the proctor finally replace the hardware.
* You are allowed to ask the proctor anything. But ask intelligent
questions. For example, if you are unsure of what a question is asking, ask
the proctor something like this:
* If I interpret this question this way......then I plan to do X. But
if I interpret this question this other way......then I plan to do Y. Which
way should I interpret it?
* Miscellaneous:
* Lab exams are usually about 17 pages long.
* A new lab is written every month and an old lab is retired every
month. There are more than 1 lab exams available to be given at any time.
Each lab achieves roughly the same pass rate.
* The average person that passes the CCIE exam takes 2.5 lab attempts.
* There is a 6 month backlog to register for the exam.
* CCIE candidates can cancel a lab exam up to 28 days before their
exam date WITHOUT being charged. Therefore, if you are willing to take an
exam in 4 weeks, you can usually schedule it in 4 weeks. Otherwise, your
lab exam will probably be 6 months out.
* Grading is done with an automated script. The script gives full
credit for any question that works properly. If a particular question does
not work properly, the lab proctor manually checks to validate whether or
not the question was answered properly. Partial credit is not given. 5
point questions are rare. When they do occur, there is usually a modular
piece to it so that 2 or 3 points can be earned without getting all 5
points.
* The RTP lab uses SecureCRT as the terminal emulator. This seems to
be preferred. The San Jose lab uses Windows.
.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Feb 01 2003 - 07:33:46 GMT-3