From: joshua lauer (jslauer@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Dec 17 2004 - 03:44:44 GMT-3
Thanks for the great workup on the lab, it's helpful. You are right, you
cant know all the ios features but studying the core features and learning
the doc cd inside and out are doable.
I know that lab is doable too, but that's still no reason to slack off for
me. I'm following close to the same prep as you except I'm using 3 different
lab books, I recently finished one and am working on the other two now.
Having multiple scenarios to work on is key I think, keeps you thinking.
My advice to myself was to not rush myself into taking the lab, I gave
myself almost a 10 month preparation window from the time I took my written
until I take my lab april 28th. I dont want to leave any stone unturned, I
think this timetable will allow me to do so. I would rather not come back
again for a second try, my wife will really be ticked :)
thanks,
josh
Joshua Lauer
RHCE, CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCIP, CCSP,INFOSEC
----- Original Message -----
From: "McLaughlin, Jeffery" <JMcLaughlin@sfchronicle.com>
To: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 10:51 PM
Subject: Passed 1st attempt--some thoughts
>I passed my first attempt over a month ago at San Jose, #14023. I wasn't in
> the mood to do a write-up until now...
>
> I haven't posted to this group because I never felt had anything to say.
> But
> I've been reading Groupstudy since the days of Token Ring switching, and
> to
> all whose posts helped me, I can only say thanks.
>
> Now, what you want to know... How was the lab? Overall, it was tough, but
> doable.
>
> I'd been using Internetwork Expert's labs, and I heard that the real thing
> is
> a lot easier. To my suprise, I found it to be about an 8 in terms of IE's
> labs. Maybe a 7. It was quite hard. That should should warn you to be
> very,
> very prepared. When I first read the test, I saw a number of things I
> hadn't
> seen before, as well as some questions where I initially wasn't sure what
> they
> wanted me to do. This is why it is so, so important to know the theory.
> After
> my initial panic, I dug in and figured out the answers pretty quickly. I
> finished with two hours to spare, and then went back and pinged everything
> from every router, fixed a bunch of mistakes. I don't use TCL scripts; my
> theory is why waste your time debugging a script when you should be
> debugging
> your lab? It takes only about 15 mintues to ping everything. Anyhow, I
> left
> five minutes early.
>
> The wording on some tasks was confusing. In one case, two requirements
> were
> apparently contradictory. The proctor helped me to sort it out ultimately.
> Don't be afraid to ask them questions, and don't waste an hour trying to
> figure out a poorly worded question. Talk to them right away.
>
> When I got back to the hotel, I thought I failed. 20 minutes after the
> test
> ended, I got an email telling me to go to Cisco's web site. My friend who
> passed in April waited 4 hours, so I thought I was dead. What almost
> killed me
> was that you have to put your written test date and score in to get your
> results, and I didn't know mine! I knew it was in April, so I started
> guessing
> at dates until I hit it. I almost passed out during those five minutes,
> I'll
> tell you. If you're traveling to the test site, BRING YOUR WRITTEN SCORE
> REPORT WITH YOU!!!
>
> OK, my advice on passing. First, know your theory. I started studying
> theory
> in January, when I started studying for the written. I approached the
> written
> like a research project, poring through every book I could get my hands
> on.
> Read non-Cisco books first: Comer and/or Stevens' books on TCP/IP,
> Perlman's
> "Interconnections", John Moy's book on OSPF, John Stewart's book on BGP,
> Huitema's protocols book. I then re-enforced the concepts with extensive
> lab
> work, dreaming up my own scenarios to test the technologies and protocols.
>
> After I passed the written, I began a six-month lab prep program. I went
> through a different technology each week, both reading theory and
> experimenting in the lab. Big topics, like BGP, I spent more time on. I
> did
> all of the examples in Doyle's books. As I worked, I took notes. In
> addition
> to general notes, I made flash cards of obscure commands, and made a list
> of
> "gotcha" items--things that had tripped me up or that I tended to forget
> to
> do.
>
> With two months to go, and a solid background and understanding of the
> technologies, I dove into sample labs. I settled on Internetwork Expert's
> labs
> as the best, after doing a few from another major vendor. The other
> vendor's
> labs just threw the kitchen sink into every lab to make them "tough," but
> they
> were not carefully thought out. I strongly recommend Internetwork Expert.
> Well-designed labs not only expose you to some of the "tricks" you need to
> remember for the test, but they should also deepen your understanding of
> how
> complex technologies interact. There were two or three things on the test
> I
> hadn't seen before, and I only solved these problems because I understood
> the
> protocols well enough to think through the difficulty. The IE labs were
> crucial in this preparation. My only <minor> complaint about them is that
> their solutions guide is distributed in encrypted PDF format, and I had a
> lot
> of problems getting the Authentica software to work. I'd also recommend
> buying
> the Cisco Press lab book (Duggan et al.) Don't even do the labs, just
> study
> the diagrams. They're a lot closer to the real thing than IE's diagrams. I
> got
> tripped up in the lab because I kept misreading the notation on the
> diagrams.
>
> I did one or two labs a week, and did not time myself, although I did
> limit my
> documentation to the CD. After I finished a lab I would VERY carefully
> grade
> myself and document my errors. I re-read my ever-growing "lab errors" doc
> every night. This limited the chances of my repeating a mistake, and was
> one
> of the keys to my success. Be sure to be honest with yourself about your
> capabilities. I mean, I've run into people who are on their third attempt
> and
> still don't know the difference between MED and LOCAL_PREF. You have to
> be
> your own harshest critic, constantly admitting your failures to yourself
> in
> order to correct them.
>
> A month before my test I took the Internetwork Expert Java-based mock-lab
> class. I do recommend it, but only if you are well prepared. They will
> find
> and fill the gaps in your knowledge, but if your gaps are chasms, they
> won't
> be able to help. The four labs I did for this class were the only timed
> labs
> I did, and I used the class to develop my time-management skills.
>
> As you start doing labs, you will discover many technologies that you
> don't
> know well, or maybe never even heard of. It can be intimidating, but
> don't
> waste your time learning the nuances of Mobile IP or server load balancing
> with IOS. Just focus on the core: switching, NBMA and its oddities,
> routing
> protocols, multicast, QoS. There are too many other IOS features out
> there to
> learn all of them. If you know the Doc CD, you can deal with those in the
> lab. One thing that I did that helped with this was to make a list with
> the
> names of weird features I didn't know how to configure, and a one or two
> sentence description. I memorized this the week before the lab. That
> way, if
> I came across one of these features, I would know its name, which is
> critical
> for finding it on the doc cd. E.g., it's hard to find "a feature that
> verifies incoming packets are coming in on the interface that they would
> normally be routed out of;" it's easy to find "Unicast RPF" on the CD,
> right?
>
> A parting thought: I see CCIE's selling their racks on eBay after they
> pass,
> but now that I have it that's the last thing I'd do. I'm keeping my rack
> and
> plunging into IPv6 and MPLS; after all, aren't CCIE's supposed to know
> everything?
>
> Jeff McLaughlin
> CCIE #14023
>
>
>
>
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