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

It took me 12 month to build my Anki deck. When I started in January I was
putting like 20 cards per lab, whatever is new for your or there is a
"trick" that you won't remember -- must go into Anki.
Later I started using screenshots from the questions/scenarios/docs, it
makes the card readable. (I mean imagine you have 4 bgp ASs and the
questions is asking something about it, it's hard to "draw" the ASs in text.
 Also you remember those "Friday's puzzle" from Narbik, guess what, it's in
my Anki, we're just humans and you can't keep everything in your head. When
I wake up I make my Yerba Mate (it's a kind of tea) and load the Anki deck,
my morning starts not with coffee, it starts with SRS :). Unless you're
a genius who can remember something just looking at it once - SRS is you
best friend.

On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Groupstudy <davidbass570_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Congrats, and some very good ideas! It's been a LONG time (2006) since I
> last tried the lab, so have been wondering how to go about the TS part.
> Your suggestions will help for sure.
>
> I've considered using anki for flash cards as well, but have never used the
> program. Where did you get the cards from?
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Dec 13, 2010, at 8:03 PM, 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: 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.) 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. 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". 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. 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). These "super-sessions" with harder that in reality TS helped a
> > lot (we did it twice with one day delay). 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 (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. 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). 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 , 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. (My anki deck has like 1300 cards).
> >
> >
> > Again, thank you all.
> >
> >
> > Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
> >
> > _______________________________________________________________________
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Received on Mon Dec 13 2010 - 22:12:28 ART