From: Darby Weaver (darbyweaver@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jun 14 2006 - 00:21:43 ART
After thinking things over...
Let me be very clear:
The lab was very fair.
It was in no non-sense English.
I had heard about all of the tricks and twists, but if
there are any, you make them yourself.
Let me repeat: The Lab is in English.
Caslow has a plan: He says "Make No Assumptions" and
he also asked his students: At every question you must
ask yourself: "What options are they taking away from
you?"
The Brians said: "You simply must have an approach,
and You must absolutely know the basics, cold".
Those who fail have failed for one of the above
reasons above.
You can add over rationalizing (Yep), overconfiguring
(Yep), falling in love with your first idea (Yep -
Great Engineers don't always pass the first time).
Typos and the number one reason is simply lack of
knowledge.
I do not care if you did all of the lab workbooks
twice.
I call this brute-force.
What have you gained, when a question comes along that
you have never seen before (Remember real life)?
So you see, I never said the lab was not doable or
fair.
It is and it is very much so.
The simlicity of the lab is in the fear and
apprehension it creates in a candidate.
It is this urban legend that makes the lab seem tough.
The fact is this: Cisco tests a candidate on the
capabilities of the IOS.
Simple as that.
They are fair and they are not trying to "beat"
anyone.
They want to know you can solve problems under
pressure and duress, and what is more read the
specifications and solve those problems
exaclty/explicitly as required.
This lab is a test of real world ability to comprehend
what is being asked of you.
You must also do so in a limited amount of time.
Sometimes (many times) I go to a Prometric Testing
Center and I take a 100 Question test or more.
They take me about 4 questions per minute to solve
andI typically pass the exam.
I know my subject.
This lab is no different. Guys like Petr, Brad, etc.
they killed this lab.
They also could answer most any question asked of them
as a matter of routine.
They each also had things they did as a matter of
technique and some things were simply intuitive at
that point.
They passed.
I have not spent that kind of time yet.
I thought about it and I know what tripped me up, I'm
going to lab what I did and why I did not see what I
expected to see and this is why I spent so much time
on one item.
I would have stuck and moved like I planned but this
was a foundational "CORE" issue that was critical to a
lot of other stuff.
I know pretty much what went wrong.
I'll be much better next time.
I can "read" now.
No thanks to some scenarios that overly complicated
things as a byproduct of keeping up with the
competition and people who thought labs should be
harder but not necessarily realistic in terms of the
real lab - but then some of those folks, have not been
in a while and have only groupstudy and their own
customer feedback.
Learn the fundamentals and learn how to apply them
using the IOS.
I see a market nitch by the way...
:)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Jul 01 2006 - 07:57:32 ART