Re: Passed the lab, some tips: "a week before the lab".

Well done and great preparation tips in there!

--
Marko Milivojevic - CCIE #18427
Senior Technical Instructor - IPexpert
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On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 21:03, Artem Nedoshepa
<artem.nedoshepa_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> First of all I want to say thank you guys, all and each of you contributed
> in my number: B CCIE#27705
>
> I'd like to share my "story".
>
> 1.5 months ago I took the lab in RTP and failed the TS but passed the
> configs. I was so confident about the TS that I thought I'd have an hour
> spare time. When I got to the 3rd ticket I realized that I'm going to need
> that "spare hour". During the TS it felt like the clock was going 1.5 times
> faster, no bathroom, no going to a breakroom. (in RTP the bathroom is kind
> of far, not like in SJC - across the hole.) B The config section took me over
> 5.5 hours, I had about 20 minutes to verify. All this 6 hours I was worried
> that I had only 8 tkt solved and most-likely some of them are incorrect, but
> I was trying to stay as positive as I could be. B On the plane home overall
> feeling was that I failed both sections, because I didn't have enough time
> to verify the configs and not enough tickets solved. The next day I got the
> results and I was ready to see "FAIL".
>
> I booked the next attempt in 6 weeks in SJC since the RTP was booked until
> February. I took it easy for a week or so, than started building a TS
> scenarios with 30+ devices and all possible trouble tickets. A friend of
> mine Charlie (who passed as well) and I used the approach : "To become a
> criminal you must think like a criminal". B You'll be surprised how much you
> can learn by "breaking" stuff for your buddy. So what we did is we made a
> .net topology in dynamips with 30 + routers, put some preconfigs (basic
> routing, BGP, MPLS etc..), we also included almost all possible "ip
> services" and other "stuff" that you see on the blueprint. B Each of us made
> 2 full TS scenarios for each other. By a "full TS scenarios" I mean 16+
> tickets, and we made the tickets a bit harder that we experienced in the
> lab. A week before the lab each of us had 2 "Super-sessions", 2 hours TS + 6
> hours configs, (let your friend to pick the lab for your, whichever vendor
> you use). B These "super-sessions" with harder that in reality TS helped a
> lot (we did it twice with one day delay). B I'd recommend not to touch the
> keyboard 2 days before the lab.
>
> SJC, the TS session started, 10 minutes passed 2 or 3 tickets done, power
> outage :), believe it or not, I didn't worried at all, I went and made some
> tea B (another tip, don't drink coffee if you don't usually drink it, it
> WON"T make you smarter/faster), went to the bathroom. It took the proctors
> 20 minutes to fix the issue, we got lucky - the configs were saved but I
> verified each solved ticket, just to make sure. I finished the TS with 30
> minutes left. The clock was going 0.8 times slower this time, everything was
> like in a slow motion, I don't know maybe because our TS was too hardcore
> than the real one. B The config part was fun, went to the proctors like 20
> times, it wasn't clear, looks like somebody from another planet wrote it.
> (my first attempt the lab was very clear, I went to the proctor only 3-4
> times). B Before going to the proctor made 3 different versions of the
> question in your head and be prepared to hear "I can't tell you it", "do
> what the question says". Take a moment and really think how to rephrase the
> same question, show the proctor that you know the "stuff" and you just need
> some small details to make the right decision.
>
> For preparation I used 4x3550 and dynamips, I made a little blog about it
> ccie4you.info B , for stuff that don't work on 3550 or Dynamips rented a real
> rack a couple of times. Use SRS twice a day, I used Anki, so far it's the
> best I've seen. B (My anki deck has like 1300 cards).
>
>
> Again, thank you all.
>
>
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