From: Alexei Monastyrnyi (alexeim@orcsoftware.com)
Date: Wed Nov 01 2006 - 11:33:38 ART
Great news, Radoslav! Congrats!
Radoslav Vasilev wrote:
> Hi Group,
>
> I've always wanted to write one of those big, inspiring emails that we
> see every now and then sent to this group by someone happy enough to
> have passed the CCIE Lab exam. But after what appears to be a couple
> of hours of sleep in the last two days I'm afraid I'll go for a
> shorter version of my success story ;)
>
> So, I passed in the lab in Brussels yesterday on my first attempt. The
> experience of the exam was totally different that what I expected we
> were eleven candidates that day, waiting at the nice reception,
> nervously eating Cisco chocolates and waiting for someone to come and
> pick us. Exactly on time our proctor for the day came and we were
> given instructions for the lab, shown around, etc.
>
> The exam started incredibly quickly, some five minutes later and
> everyone around me started clicking on their keyboards exactly like
> everyone has said before in this group -people really start working
> right way as opposed to sit, relax and actually read what's on the lab
> scenario.
>
> My first warning to all of you guys that are due to go for first time
> to the lab don't over-read the tasks and don't loose too much time
> for this phase this was my only mistake I did yesterday I started
> configuring after one hour and a half of reading and checking. I was
> taken by surprise for reasons I can't mention for NDA reasons, but I
> can say that you should expect any kind of format for the scenario and
> work your way quickly to a format that you're used to from your
> preparation. Anyway even after so much time reading, I didn't finish
> reading the whole lab I left behind the IP services section,
> security, etc because I knew this shouldn't break my lab and I
> finally started configuring.
>
> You'll have roughly four hours before lunch time and after twenty or
> so minutes for lunch we went back to the room to continue the second
> part of the exam. At least in Brussels you can leave the room at any
> time and go to bathroom or coffee room.
>
> I thought did pretty bad before lunch as I couldn't finish the IGP
> sections I made a poll at lunch time and found out that all of the
> people I asked couldn't completely finish it anyway it seemed that
> everyone was just about to check connectivity or finish one or two
> tasks more. Anyway after lunch you need to wisely manage your time
> as you need at least two and a half hours for checking it's
> incredible how much time it takes to confirm things you need to
> check every little detail for every task if you want to have a nice
> confident flight back home something I didn't have as I couldn't
> completely finish my second round of testing this is usually when I
> find my mistakes made when I originally configured a task I found a
> single mistake only and was quite sure that I was missing more from
> the last two sections.
>
> So give yourself at least two and a half hours for checking, which
> means that you should be able to complete your configuration for four
> hours and a half, after one hour of preparation, topology redraws,
> etc.
>
> Otherwise I could say the lab itself was pretty straightforward I've
> been using InternetWorkExpert workbooks for my preparation and can
> definitely say that the lab was easier than their score-8 labs. I
> never had to open the Cisco documentation CD throughout my
> configuration and for me at least the lab was a clear matter of time
> management you have tens of easy things you have to do within eight
> hours so hurry up and do them, while checking them one time right
> after configuring and one time after a clean fresh reload of the rack
> at the end.
>
> As for preparation here are the facts about mine:
>
> I started with IP Expert workbooks they were good but since I bought
> them before the ATM/etc removal, I decided to not upgrade with their
> newer version and instead got the Internetworkexpert workbooks.
>
> I find the latter definitely the best preparation tool I like the
> way the IEWB are structured, I like their general approach, they are
> also closer to the lab format. After going through half of their
> volume one, I decided to step back and get their CoD product which got
> me some additional understanding of the technologies things you
> don't usually read in a cisco press book or on the DocCD if you have
> some extra money buy it, I'm not saying you cannot pass without it
> though. At the time I purchased the IEWB books, I realized that
> studying every weekend and in the evenings is not getting me anywhere
> so I negotiated with my company to have two extra days off each
> week.
> This completely changed my preparation I wasn't anymore tired every
> day I started working on my CCIE preparation from Friday to Monday
> and I could really feel how the labs got easier and easier with every
> next week. My preparation strategy was simple don't just do the lab
> always stop when you come across something you don't understand
> read all possible theory behind the subject, make notes and keep all
> your notes this notes are the best last-day preparation tool.
> At the end of the IEWB workbooks I realized that the worst think that
> could happen in the lab is to have a basic connectivity task I can't
> implement for example, what if they ask me to do PPPoE link between
> the two parts of the network , or give me an Frame-relay task I'm not
> familiar with. That's why I took the Core Workbook from IE and started
> working on the ten labs from there. You really want to make sure you
> know how to resolve any possible connectivity task frame-relay,
> Ethernet, PPP.
> As you see, my preparation was completely messed - I started with lab
> workbooks, then read some theory again and watched the CoD, then went
> on with the corebooks this worked for me and I'm sure something
> completely different will work for you!
>
> The lab exam is doable it is definitely not as much as you think
> right now, while preparing. Just keep one thing in mind at the end
> of the day it's a "Routing and Switching" Exam this is the most
> important part of your preparation. Don't expect to have the most
> complex tasks coming from the security section or from the IP Services
> section. And after all complexity is subjective and always depends
> on how you have prepared!
>
> Good luck!
> Rado
>
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