From: Jason Madsen (madsen.jason@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Feb 25 2009 - 02:30:59 ARST
I wonder if Cisco has a feedback type mechanism for topics such as this
one? I'm not sure it would do any good, but if there were a way for us to
help re-capture the integrity of the lab, which was supposedly compromised,
yet make these open ended questions less...crappy, i'd be fully supportive.
Personally, I'd much rather endure a 30 minute personal interview in which I
was prompted to explain technologies in a truly open ended format than press
my luck on a nearly all or nothing shot at 4-5 written questions. Before
clarification was made as to whether it was an oral interview or written
questions, I was nervous about the idea of interviewing, but knowing what i
know now i think it might more closely achieve what Cisco is looking for
with these open ended questions.
If people are cheating, i'm sure they'll find a way to brain dump these
written questions somehow and pass the open ended question section, but
they'd be easily exposed in an open ended interview. However, qualified
candidates would probably smoke an interview, yet potentially take a crap
shoot with the all or nothing written questions. I guess the main issue
with an interview would be the subjectiveness / relativity in grading and
potentially language barriers for non-native speakers.
just my 35.6 cents :-)
Jason
On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Jason Madsen <madsen.jason@gmail.com>wrote:
> Hi Dale,
>
> I know many folks are saying don't worry about the questions and that if
> you're prepared for the lab they will be easy, but from my experience they
> were less "open ended" and more specific / quantifiable / measurable than
> open ended. I don't want to discourage people and lead anyone to believe
> that they have to memorize every timer, metric, and default value, but more
> importantly I don't want people to under credit the open questions, do very
> well on the lab, and then potentially fail the whole thing due to 4-5
> written questions. It's a shame that we don't get access to the doc' cd
> and/or the routers and switches during the open ended question portion.
> After all, in my opinion, it's not always about knowing everything as much
> as it is quickly being able to locate information via a quick "show" command
> or else a quick doc' cd lookup etc.
>
> As for "does that mean I'm not worthy of being a CCIE?", the one guy I was
> referring to earlier felt as though he was slapped in the face. He learned
> the technologies thoroughly and didn't fair well on the open ended questions
> and in his grade report displayed zero points in "core competencies". To
> him that read, "incompetent", which of course made him feel horrible.
>
> Jason
>
> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:14 PM, Dale Shaw <dale.shaw@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Jason Madsen <madsen.jason@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > best case scenario is that you get a set of simple open ended
>> > questions and have a bunch of timers, codes, metrics, and things in your
>> > brain that you didn't necessarily need. i mean what can a devoted few
>> weeks
>> > focused on open ended question prep' hurt after studying who knows how
>> long
>> > for the lab portion? worse case scenario otherwise is that you devote a
>> > year or twenty in lab preparation only, smoke the lab portion, and then
>> fail
>> > overall due to a few written questions because of not revisiting default
>> > values, timers, codes and whatnot.
>>
>> <general rant>
>>
>> If I'm asked any short answer questions that requires me to have
>> committed to memory the value of a default timer (or any other
>> hard-coded value) I can discover in 3 seconds with a 'show' command, I
>> will be bitterly, bitterly disappointed. I may or may not know it, but
>> if I don't, in Cisco's view, does that mean I'm not worthy of being a
>> CCIE?
>>
>> I hope that was just a example you plucked out of the air, and not
>> based on an anecdote you got from someone who's encountered something
>> like that in these new questions.
>>
>> Argh, that'd be the last thing we need -- more "memorisable" content.
>>
>> cheers,
>> Dale
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