From: Bill Wagner (billccie2b@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jul 31 2006 - 22:29:09 ART
Hi guys, I am trying to get a handle on the R&S Lab difficulty. Not long
ago I attempted the lab and came up short. I had done quite a number of
full practice labs (around 40) and felt that I was fairly strong with
them. To be sure I wasn't cheating myself somehow I attempted a mock lab
and did really well on it. From reading this message board for sometime I
noticed many people say that the actual lab was a lot easier than the
practice labs and in one case someone said 3-5 times easier. Well without
disclosing any information I can honestly say that the real lab I took
was more difficult than any other practice labs I had attempted prior.
Now I haven't been someone who came into this thinking that I knew so
much that I only needed to pump out some practice labs,memorize some
scenarios, and learn the "advanced content". Instead I took the ground up
approach to build a strong foundation by understanding the technology.
Well after recently failing the lab I am somewhat humbled and am trying
to get an understanding of where I stand. Part of me believes that I got
a difficult test, but then another part of me thinks that maybe I am not
as ready as I thought I was. The thing is that it seems hard to gauge so
I need to come to the group for some answers. Now if some how or some way
this is in violation of the NDA please disregard it and do not answer it,
but I don't think this will break the NDA so here they are. My questions
for anyone who has taken the lab or taken it mutiple times is: 1. Did the
actual test seem more difficult than the labs or was it the other way
around? If so what material did you use to prepare with. 2. Did anyone
who has attempted multiple labs feel that any labs were easier than
others or did they all seem about the same difficulty? 3. What is a good
way to guage if you are ready or not? I am open to any ideas at all. I
would rather be overprepared than underprepared, but where that line is
at I don't know. 4. Does anyone feel that the lab is out to fail you? By
this I mean after seeing the Cisco facility in SJC I was extreemly
impressed with the facility. It was beautiful, but when I sat down at my
workstation I thought that there was some kind of mistake. The keyboard
looked like it belonged in a museum. It was really dirty and had the big
enter key so everytime you try to hit backspace you hit enter. The pipe
key was tiny and not where it belongs. The right click button on the
mouse did not work and the scroll wheel did not move the terminal window
but instead would move through previous commands in the history. Also if
the scroll wheel was not in the exact right spot when you tried to
highlight text from the terminal window the screen would jump and
highlight 3 lines instead of the one you wanted. In addition the monitor
was not very good, although at least it worked. My friend said that the
insert key was broken on his keyboard, and I couldn't use the default (ALT E
P) quick key paste function from Secure CRT. Even notepad was hidden way
off to the side of the quick key bar. Although this might seem trivial
it really throws you off if you are not used to it. I think that perhaps
this is all done to slow you down, however I could be wrong. Anyway if
anyone has input I would really appreciate it. Thanks, Bill
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