From: Scott Smith (hioctane@gmail.com)
Date: Thu May 17 2007 - 11:15:15 ART
I've dealt with those "I know I passed... then failed" situations.
Twice as a matter of fact. It is a difficult thing to get passed for
sure.
First Attempt - I was pretty sure I had passed. Then I received my
score report and I couldn't not believe my eyes. I "allegedly" dropped
points in tasks which I knew were correct. To this day I'm sure the
person or script that graded my exam had no idea what config was
correct :-) I was so mad it took more than a week to calm down and
another week or two to start my prep for round 2.
Second Attempt - I was positive I had passed... no doubt in my mind.
On my way out I asked the proctor if I passed if he'd let me back in
the following morning to sign the wall. He said he would. Of course at
1am (or so) I got the dreaded "you failed" message. $%^@@&^$ (edited
for our younger readers) !!! Now I'm 100% sure whomever or whatever is
scoring my exam is on drugs. This time I didn't get as mad as the
previous attempt and I starting my prep for round 3 within a week of
failing.
Third Attempt - I was absolutely certain I had failed. So certain, in
fact, that on the flight home I was going over how to prepare for
round 4. When I got home and checked my email I discovered I had
passed. Absolute disbelief! For the next two months I expected an
email from Cisco stating they'd made a terrible mistake and I didn't
really pass. It wasn't until I received my plaque that I was *sure* I
really was a CCIE :-)
To this day I have no idea why I failed the first two or I how passed
the last one :-) I lab'd up the first two trying to find mistakes but
never did any. It is THE most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with.
You simply have to let the last one go and move on to the next. You
cannot dwell on it and you cannot wait to long to get going again.
As far as my prep after the first failure... I went through every
single step over again over the course of ~6 months. I re-read every
book, watched every CoD, and worked every lab. Just as I did before my
first attempt. The interesting point about this is no matter how many
times I read a book or watched a CoD I always picked up something I
had missed before. As *they* say... the devil is in the details...
Now a couple of tips on deciphering that ever so useful score
report... thou shall do this even if you think you passed.
1) As soon as you have a chance (airport, parking lot, hotel) write
down everything you can remember about the exam. Every task, point
value and drawing (try really hard to get the wording right). This
wasn't all that hard for me since I'd been staring at the exam for the
last ~8 hours.
2) Make a note of the total point values per section (IGP, BGP, QoS,
etc). Write them down on your scratch paper and memorize them maybe 10
minutes before you walk out. I know it isn't exactly easy at this
point in the day given the state of your brain but you've only got to
remember from the building to the parking lot (as the proctor pointed
out to me <g>) :-) This step will help a lot when you get your score
because then you can take the percentage and turn it into a real point
value which *may* help you identify exactly which task(s) you missed.
There are so many stressful factors related to passing the lab. The
huge amount of time required, the financial burden (ALL of my expenses
came out of my pocket too), time away from family just to name a few.
On top of all this you think you've passed but you didn't and you get
useless feedback on what you did wrong. It is like getting one last
kick in a not-so-nice place.
You CAN do it. You've just got to pick yourself up off the ground,
forget about the last attempt and tell yourself "I'm going to kick
some Cisco ass next time!"
-- Scott CCIE #17040 (R&S)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Jun 01 2007 - 06:55:21 ART