RE: My Failure Report

Ravi,

I stand by what I said privately. You only missed by a little bit and you surely won't make that mistake again. I have a 3 and 5 year old, so I understand where you're coming from. It sounds like your wife is as supportive as mine, get back on the horse, but not before taking a long weekend to unwind. I'm sure we'll see a different result next time.

-ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: nobody_at_groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody_at_groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of Ravi Singh
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 4:02 PM
To: Cisco certification
Subject: My Failure Report

HI Group,

I failed my first attempt at Brussels yesterday and looking at the score
report I feel I missed it by just a few points ...I would not say that I was
not prepared .. I was very much prepared technically but what I was not
prepared with was the format the actual lab is given .. So here I present to
you a small report on what are my observations, opinion and recommendations
about the lab ..This is just my opinion of how I felt so it is totally upto
you how you take it..there may be people agreeing to this ..there will be
lots of them not agreeing to it ..

PREPARATION
1) If you think you will focus on just the core topics and will manage the
non-core ones...you may be proved wrong on your lab day ..I'd suggest you
should know every part of the blueprint in-and-out ..I learnt it the hard
way ..

2) Whichever vendor's workbooks you are doing do it only to understand the
technology and concepts..If you are doing the full scale labs to build your
strategy/speed or whatever for the actual lab, no matter whatever difficulty
level it is, it won't help much because the actual lab is not formatted that
way ..In fact if you have completed all the labs that a particular vendor
has and you can now complete any lab that vendor gives you, you will
definitely pass an exam that is that vendor's own certification but not
Cisco because you haven't had a taste of the actual lab ..But since practice
is also one of the keys to passing the lab , the labs may be helpful in some
sense who knows ..

OBSERVATION on the LAB
3) Due to the NDA constraints the only thing I can say is remember point 1
above..

RECOMMENDATION/ADVICE
 Since I haven't passed the exam I cannot really recommend anything but for
people who would still like to know ..here is some advice/recommendation

4) For the learning material I found Narbik's workbooks the best because
they explain the technology very clearly and in a very simple and straight
forward manner..I mean if ARP ,for example , can be explained using two
routers why go and build an enterprise network setup for it..Narbik's
bootcamp is also highly recommended because the guy knows the value of your
money..It would have hurt me more if I would have failed the exam after
taking a 5000$ bootcamp and some 1000$ workbooks ..During the preparation
for this attempt Narbik had been a great mentor and a very good friend who
had helped me more than he actually could ..Narbik, I am sorry to disappoint
you on not passing the lab but I am personally very satisfied that your
mentorship had helped me so much in the exam that I was really not worried
about the technical difficulty of the questions being put in..

NEXT-STEP
5) I still haven't decided anything on it yet, because all these gone days
and months when I used to study in my room and my 15 month old daughter came
to me asking me to play with her I would have to turn her away on the
pretext that I would surely spend time with her soon..And now when I see her
face I just don't get the courage of doing the same thing again ..Its just
one day that has passed so once I get over the "loser syndrome" , I would
think about it...I am not gonna give up so easily ...

LAST FEW WORDS
6) As I mentioned initially there will be loads of people saying .." He is
just a whiner ..had he been technically prepared he would have passed the
lab " but according to my score report I scored a 100% in what everyone
calls the core topics and the OEQs..What took me to doom was two things
a) even though I had a strategy/plan etc. ready for the lab it didn't
actually work because it was not made while doing any labs of that calibre..
b) Point No. 1 of this email

Now for people who have passed the lab,,it's easy to say that failure is a
part of the journey or stuff like that..but for people who failed nothing
can be more consoling than the CCIE number in the signature..I anyhow accept
that in my failure it was nobody else's fault than mine so I would now need
to work much harder and rise back from the ashes ;-)

I forgot to add that this forum is still the best place to be for the lab
prep..and I would in anycase would like to thank people who are a member of
this forum ..Keep up the good work guys

Thanks
Ravi

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Received on Thu Jul 30 2009 - 16:37:47 ART