From: No Name (sweetabuli@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Jan 19 2008 - 04:44:26 ARST
Congrats bruno. Thanks for sharing your experience.
On 1/18/08, bruno.wollmann@rqhealth.ca <bruno.wollmann@rqhealth.ca> wrote:
>
> Hello GS,
>
> Sorry for this long-winded message. I just wanted to share my experience
> in hopes that it helps others attain their CCIE goal.
>
> On Monday, January 14th in San Jose I passed the CCIE lab on my second
> attempt. I was very surprised at how quickly I found out. 3 hours after we
> were booted out of the lab I got the email telling me to check the website
> for my results. After a few nervous clicks, I saw the great news.
>
> I want to thank all who contribute to this list as it is a great resource
> for learning. I joined this list in July, 2007 and I think I have only had
> to post 2 questions as all my other questions were answered by reading the
> archives. This is a fantastic group.
>
> I want to thank the proctors in San Jose. They were very helpful.
>
> I also need to thank my family and especially my wife. I have 3 kids who
> are very busy with sports and my wife took over my parenting duties to allow
> me to study. I am truly lucky to have such a great wife. I can now go back
> to being a father, husband, friend and coach as I used to coach my kids
> hockey and baseball teams before I started studying for CCIE.
>
> Final thanks go to IPEXPERT and INTERNETWORK EXPERT as it was their
> products I purchased to help me study.
>
> I also have to apologize as I will most likely be decreasing the average
> salary for a CCIE. I live in a place that doesn't have a very large
> population and not many large networks (I think I work on the 2nd largest
> network in my area already) so the only way to get a higher paying job is to
> move. There is no way my family wants to move. I do like my current job so
> it would be hard to leave. The only other option is to become a traveling
> or remote consultant. Let me know if you're looking for such a person :)
>
> STUDY MATERIAL:
> IP Expert WB version 9.0
> IE WB version 4.1 Volumes I, II & III
> IE Advanced Technologies CoD version 4.5 Cisco UniverCD - many, many hours
> spent here Group Study Archives - many, many hours spent here as well
> ftp://ftpeng.cisco.com/ipmulticast/training/index.html
>
> STUDY STRATEGY:
> My study strategy for my 2nd attempt was very different than for my first
> attempt (June 2007). For my first attempt the only thing I used to study
> was IP Expert WB version 9.0. This book got me very close to passing but
> I didn't use it the right way. I completed this workbook from cover to
> cover and that helped me come up with a very good strategy for taking the
> exam itself but I still had holes in my knowledge. I am in no way bashing
> IP Expert. I am very happy with their product and I would recommend it to
> anyone. My problem was I stuck 100% to the workbook. I didn't go exploring
> to change any solutions to see the affects that different commands have on a
> working system. I also spent no time with the UniverCD. I went into my
> first attempt being very weak in QoS and Multicast. This was a bad
> idea. It truly is an expert level exam and weaknesses will be exposed. I
> took 6 weeks holidays from work right before this attempt and worked from
> morning to night. I think !
> I burnt myself out and really gave myself no chance to pass.
>
> I started studying in October 2007 again after taking 3 months off to
> enjoy summer and so that I could get involved with my family again. I
> started by reading the UniverCD and trying different commands to understand
> how they work and what they do. I spent many hours in the QoS and Multicast
> sections. ftp://ftpeng.cisco.com/ipmulticast/training/index.html was
> next. I felt very comfortable with multicast after reading everything on
> this website. I then went through the IE CoD. This was a good refresher
> for topics I already knew and felt comfortable with. It was a great tool
> for building a good foundation for my weak areas.
>
> I then took another 3 weeks holidays from work for the 3 weeks right
> before my 2nd attempt. In these last 3 weeks I only did 8 full day labs. I
> did a few from IP Expert and a few from IE. Each 8-hour lab took me about
> 16 hours over 2 days. This is because I looked up everything in the
> UniverCD so that I knew where to find everything if I needed it during the
> exam. The other reason was that I tried every possible solution to each
> question. I learned how each option affected the solution and I also
> learned the show and debug commands to verify my solutions. I didn't know
> many show and debug commands for my first attempt. As backwards as this
> sounds, I think taking 16 hours to do an 8-hour lab actually helped with my
> speed. When I got to the real exam, I was able to immediately think of a
> few different options for each question and then all I had to do was decide
> on the correct option and apply it.
>
> In the last days leading upto my exam I was getting very good at the core
> topics. For the remaining IE labs I didn't do the layer 2 and 3
> portions. I just read the labs and the solution guides and just answered
> the remaining lab questions on routers and switches without any base
> configs. Obviously I couldn't test IP reachability with this method but I
> didn't need to. I just wanted to be able to read a question, understand the
> problem and know what solution to implement. I found this to be a good
> strategy for Security, IP and IOS Features.
>
> I quit studying at noon on Friday, January 12th. I installed a new
> dishwasher in my kitchen on Friday afternoon and took my youngest son to a
> hockey game on Friday night. I flew to San Francisco early Saturday morning
> and went shopping for souvenirs. I didn't study all day. At night I went
> and watched the San Jose Sharks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs. Before I went
> to bed, I checked GS. On Sunday I woke up at 7:00am and went on the tour of
> Alcatraz and then toured around Fisherman's Wharf for the rest of the
> day. Sunday night I went to a movie and then checked GS before I went to
> bed. I kept myself very busy on the weekend and did a lot of walking while
> shopping and site-seeing. This was to ensure that when I went to bed at
> 9:00pm on Sunday I was tired enough to get to sleep. This worked like a
> charm. I was exhausted after all the walking and slept like a baby.
>
> EXAM STRATEGY:
> I started off by making a 4 column table. The first column was to
> indicate the status of the question: blank - not done/skipped, check mark -
> done, question mark - solution entered but need to re-verify later. The
> second column was the question number. Third column was point
> value. Fourth column was for notes.
> I read the entire exam once making notes as I read. I then read it again.
> I then started the exam and verified every answer using show and debug
> commands as I went along.
> I finished everything with about 2.5 hours left. I used that time to
> re-do the exam. I'm glad I did because I found a few errors that didn't
> meet the requirements of the question. I would most certainly have gotten
> zero for those questions and may not have passed.
>
> I think I went to the proctors about 4 or 5 times and referenced the
> UniverCD about 7 or 8 times.
>
> FINAL THOUGHTS:
> Know yourself.
>
> You must know what your weaknesses are and focus on strengthening those
> areas. I spent 2 months studying only QoS and Multicast. I got to the
> point where I was hoping for a hard question in these 2 subject areas on the
> exam. OK, maybe I wasn't hoping for a hard question but I was certainly
> prepared for it.
>
> You must know what you are capable of. For me, studying 16 hours a day
> for 6 weeks straight last June was way too grueling. I really cut back the
> hours I studied in one day and spread it out using more days but less study
> hours in each day. My brain needed time each day to chew on the new
> information it just received. I couldn't retain anything during the 16-hour
> days.
>
> Don't study the day before or even 2 or 3 days before your exam. Because
> of the 2.5 day break I took before the exam, I was fresh and ready to
> go. I was more attentive and alert because of the break.
>
> Finally, this is a hard mountain to climb but it can definitely be
> climbed. It takes hard work, dedication, intelligence, imagination and
> heart, especially if you've already failed once. I read a few posts on GS
> where people are worried that there are too many CCIE's and that this
> certification is becoming de-valued. I disagree with those comments. I
> don't care if there are 20,000 or 200,000 CCIE's out there, it still takes
> the qualities I just mentioned to become a CCIE. These qualities will never
> be de-valued.
>
> thanks and good luck to all those that are still climbing,
> Bruno Wollmann
> CCIE#19817
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
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