I have been using the CCIE practice test product from Net Master Class for about a week now, and I wanted to let you all know what I think of it so far.
The test costs $99, and can be purchased at http://www.netmasterclass.net/CCIE/Other-Products/Written/. It takes about 1 business day after your purchase before your account is setup on their site. You access the test from your Internet browser. It’s not a downloadable product. So you will need to have an Internet connection int order to use it.
I haven’t taken my written exam yet, so I can’t say exactly how well it preps you for the test. But so far, it is doing a good job of challenging me. Prior to using this product, I have been using the Boson written exam practice questions that were included in the Cisco Press Official Exam Certification Guide. I was hitting around the 85% mark on the Boson product. After I started using the Net Master Class (NMC) product, my scores dropped to 65% on my first few tries. My scores have since gone up, but the questions are definitely trickier over all.
Even though the questions have been tougher, I have found the questions to be worded fairly. Often when I mess up (even though I knew the material), it was because I didn’t pick up on the correct key words. When it comes to test prep, I guess that’s a good thing. You not only need to know the material, you need to make sure that you understand the question. Assuming what the question is asking is something that you want to avoid.
One thing that I have been impressed with is the quality control of the questions. I would say that about 10% of the Boson questions are wrong in one respect or another. That manifests itself with incorrect diagrams for the questions, multiple identical answers in the same question, or just wrong answers to the questions. Often times, the errors are so blatant, you wouldn’t even need to know anything about networking to realize that there were errors. The saddest part about the Boson product is that is has a built-in update function along with a built-in ability to submit feedback regarding questions. They evidently just never read the user submissions, or bother to update their tests.
The NMC product would be on the opposite end of the spectrum. So far, I have only found 1 question where the answer was incorrect based on how they asked the question. I used the option to submit a comment on the question (which is just an email with the question number in the subject field). A day or 2 later, I actually got a response back admitting the error and letting me know that they were going to update the verbiage of the question to fit the answer. I was quite impressed with that response. Especially after dealing with Boson. It’s good to know that they take an active role in keeping their content correct.
A few other nice features in the product include the ability to narrow down the scope of the questions to specific subject topics. You also have an option where you can choose to no longer see a question after answering correctly 1-4 times (which you can customize). It also keeps track of your tests, and you see see all of the questions and what you answered. One other nice feature is that you can either answer questions and move on, or you can it show you if you answer an individually question correctly before you advance to the next one.
There is one complaint that I have about the product. It does not seem to have a feature that will break down how well you did on a test by topic. So you can’t see a nice graph showing you where your weak subjects are.
Outside of that one thing, it’s definitely a nice product. If you are looking to pick up a practice test product for the CCIE written, I would definitely recommend this. If you go to the link that I provided earlier, you can see a sample question from the product. The question changes each day, so you can get a feel for it over a week or so.
