RE: The story of number #24235

I told you that you can make it :)

Congrats again!

-- 
Hrvoje Sostaric; CCIE #20006
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody_at_groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody_at_groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
George Roman
Sent: Tuesday, 28. April, 2009 05:57
To: ccielab_at_groupstudy.com
Cc: Hrvoje Sostaric
Subject: The story of number #24235
I thought it will never happen....
I started my journey in 2007 when i took my CCNP. For some reason i was
caught in this frustration thing that CCNP was not enough because i have
seen a lot of guys passing this exam and they did not have a clue.
So i took the written in June 2007 with a very decent score. I thought
to
myself.... how hard can the lab be?? What can they make me do that i do
not
know already??
In June, the company where i was working back then sent me to a CCIE
Bootcamp for two weeks in Austria at FastLane. After we started there i
realised that i am not even close because most of the lab requirements
have
nothing to do with the best practice. I started to feel unprepaired and
to
regre that i attended the bootcamp that early but on the other hand i
was
happy that this bootcamp make me realise what i should focus on and that
i
can practice for 2 weeks full time.
I started to work harder on the lab and i decided to take a shoot
I did my first attempt in Dec 2007 and after the lab i had a feeling
that it
was not so bad. My score was about 70% and i have scored most of the
tasks.
Ofcourse after the lab itself i thought i would have scored more and i
started to wander if i do not missinterpret the tasks. By far i can tell
you
that this "interpretation" fear is the most crap feeling that a
candidate
can ever have (you do not know what you did wrong in the lab).
The strategy that i used back then was to read the entire lab and then
drow
a diagram. It seem that this did not worked good for me...After 1 hour
of
lab i realised that i did not even started. By reading the whole lab did
not
helped me because it didn't steak into my head. The diagram did not
helped
me much either.
The second attempt was in June 2008. After the lab, on the way to the
hotel
i remembered that i forgot to do two things for two tasks, but even with
that i thought i would pass. The score came back in and after i
calculated i
was stoned (aroud 79%). My good friend Hrvoije Sostaric (a guy that i
met in
that FastLane boot camp) encouraged me to rase a reread which i did.
Normally this should have taken like 3 weeks but after 5 weeks i still
did
not get any answer back so i asked Cisco: "what is going on there?" Few
days
after i received an email that the result is unchanged. I was complitely
depressed, but what could i do? The fact is a fact.
For this second attempt i have changed the strategy: i started to do the
top-buttom approach (but by analysing some of the implications for the
future tasks, for example if you have frame relay, then try to see what
protocol are you going to run there, if there is going to be
authentication,
just few things so that you do not do it twice) without any diagram. I
felt
that this strategy is much better and i had lot more time.
After this i took a short break due to the fact that i got a better job
into
another country at a company which name i am afraid to tell because some
of
you might consider that a blasfemy :) The guys at J encouraged me to
take
the CCIE off of my head. So i started again...(this time since i did not
have my own equipments i started using Dynamips and rack rentals) I can
tell
you that it is quite interesting feeling to do both vendors at the same
time.
I started by taking my first moc lab (MOC3) from Internetwork Expert
just to
know where i am, if i forgot things or not, etc. to this one i scored
like
82 percent with very light mistakes. On the way i did another 2 Moc and
2
Asset labs.
Gys... i can tell you some of the moc labs are realy disscuraging. You
think
you did it and then BANG!! the report kicks you.  Anyway the proctors at
IE
are very nice persons. Because i was not sure about the score that i
received, I wrote them about some of the tasks which i thought that i
did
and they helped me understood what i missinterpret.
Now the good part. Yesturday i have been in Brusseles for the third
time. I
was not scared about the lab anymore but the OEQ freak me out because
the
paranoia is huge among the candidates.
I took a complete 30 minutes to answer the OEQ (at one moment the
proctor
said that i am writting too much). I finished the lab around 14:30 i
reviewed it untill 16:25 (found one mistake, and i cleared up some more
possible missinterpretation with the proctor for some of the tasks). My
lab
strategy was to go streight forward (top to buttom) but try to see the
implications on the future tasks also (guess what it si going to
happen).
After i arrived home, i was very nervous because of the OEQ mainly
because
of the remark that i had from the proctor. I could not sleep all night
and
now, around 4 o'clock i decided to take a look and see if i have update
from
cisco. I opened.... and.... BOOM!! the number :)
Now i know that a lot of you, candidates are interesting of the material
that you should use for the preparation. After i went through the exam I
personally think that there is no need to do some extra prep if you
really
study for the lab. Anyway i tell you what i did:  i took the IE product
i
did it like 1 and a half times, i took also the free IPexpert thing and
i
went through this one two times (just to get an ideea how the questions
should look like and what to study). After that i started to review the
materials for the written. In the last 3 weeks (think of this like 3
hours
per day during the week and full weekend, so if you have more time you
maybe
clear it out faster) i have used the Ciscopress and for some of the
topics
that were not covered (like IPv6) i used TCP/IP 1,2.
For the lab preparation, i would recommand you to visit IE forum, there
are
a lot of good discussions about each IE lab that they have and you can
learn
a lot from the guys that are doing the same mistakes as you.
Also find a strategy that works for you and then during preparation use
only
that one.
First i want to thank Good for giving me strenght to finalyze this, than
to
my family and especially to my wife who supported me so much and
encouraged
me all the way, my good friend Hrvoje Sostaric who encourage me all the
way,
to the proctors of IE who understood my frustration and helped me
understand
what i do wrong.
As for the future i am planing to take a short break and then i will go
for
JNCIE.
Best regards,
George Roman
CCIE#24235 (R&S)
JNCIP#685 (M/T)
JNCIS (M/T), CCNP
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