From: Joseph Rinehart (jjrinehart@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 23 2004 - 15:44:41 GMT-3
I feel your pain, I had what I thought were reasomable expectations going
into my last attempt and even felt like it wass all doable. However I fell
into one of those infamous land mines and even though I did actually finish
the exam this time, I never was able to resolve the issue. Naturally that
had a cascade effect that ran throughout the rest of the lab because it
wasnt operating correctly. In retrospect I could have probably used a
workaround to at least preserve the later points but its a moot point now.
I swore I would just quit and forget the whole thing, I felt pretty
humiliated, but couple that with the fact that the way I configured the
switches was causing some kind of storm in the lab and you get the picture.
After I calmed down I tried to assess some things. First, two things that
pretty much did me in the first time around I sailed through without a beat.
In addition, I was able to work through most of the requirements without
looking a lot at the Doc CD. And the fact that I actually finished the exam
did offer me some comfort.
I sympathize with your frustration---"been there, done that, bought the
T-shirt". Hang in there but not by your neck. :P
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Calton, Doug" <Doug.Calton@getronics.com>
To: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 4:03 AM
Subject: Failed 2nd Attempt
> Well, the first time I took this, I knew I wasn't ready. This go
> around, I thought MAYBE I could make it, but knew it was a bit dicey.
> Frankly, if I wasn't approaching my deadline (I was side-tracked by work
> off site for several months and lost momentum), I would have deferred
> another month or two - I am just not "crisp" with it all yet.
> Anyway, a few thoughts on my experience:
> * Generally, compared to some of the practice labs, I feel that
> both labs I tried SHOULD be fairly easy. I was very intent on landmines
> and gotchas, and in some sense, the lab seemed to go out of its way to
> avoid them. Based on my percentages, I didn't miss anything obvious
> like that - BGP, IGP and switching were all high.
> * Like last time there are a LOT of things you just can't test
> that you have to configure. That means you HAVE to know how to
> implement it correctly and perfectly - if you are not solid on how to
> set something up, there is just too much chance (for me at least) that
> you will forget a small but critical point, and miss the entire section.
> I suspect that this happened to me in at least two sections, and that
> loses you 6 or so points right there.
> * I thought the wording of this test was poorer than my last test.
> At least in two instances, I knew they were setting me up for something,
> but were not being very good about scoping or explaining it. In one
> case, I was pretty sure what they were looking for, but just could not
> clarify it properly. Also could not really ask an appropriate question
> of the proctor on this, although I tried.
> * There is a random occurance of esoteric things that I just don't
> and can't know, and cannot find anywhere on the CD. IMO, those points
> are a crap shoot. E.g., I may understand perfectly how to set up
> notifications for monitored aspects of a router, but cannot know or find
> exact parameters to configure for those aspects, such as MIB details or
> scalars. Those points, I just made a stab at coding up and hope for a
> miracle. I would appreciate anyone recommending alternate strategies
> here. I mean, I know we have to memorize DLSW port numbers, SAP filters
> and a couple of other facts just not on the DOC CD. But how could I
> possibly memorize the entire ASN structure for a specific router or what
> 70 degrees would translate to (just examples here, folks)? Maybe I
> could sort of test this stuff out, but it is HARD to think of all of
> this during the test - maybe that is the difference between passing and
> almost passing, eh?
> * There are also a number of fluff stuff questions in there that I
> am beginning to feel a bit like MSCE-type brain-dump traps. I'm not
> sure what I think of these, but I wrote a negative about them on my
> feedback response. Again, not a real example, but I cannot imagine EVER
> using menu stuff on a router in real life these days, and only came
> across it in a simulated lab. This is not real comprehension of the
> meat technologies, just an artifact/freebie of the IOS. I don't really
> care if I EVER know all of these little things.
> * There are a few technologies exercised heavily in the boot camps
> and simulated labs that I just haven't seen much of in either attempt.
> I am beginning to think these are phasing out or moving to other tests.
> I wouldn't recommend NOT studying these, but in retrospect I do wish I
> had concentrated more on the bigger picture and less on the minor
> details of these technologies.
>
> One side story for my day that probably defined the day for me overall:
> Early on, I had some debugs streaming on my screen as I typed in copy
> run star
> And of course, it ended up coming out as "copy runs tar". Anyway, when
> I answered the prompt through the blur of debugs, I didn't recognise
> that it was asking me if it should erase flash prior to saving "tar",
> and not what to name the running config. Had to go to the proctor with
> hat in hand to ask him to restore my flash. Maybe I'm just fighting a
> losing battle here, eh?
>
> Doug Calton
> Program Manager
> AN/TSP
> Tel: 513-774-8333
> FAX: 978-625-1026
> Mobile: 513-253-8484
> doug.calton@getronics.com
> www.getronics.com/us
>
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