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CCIE written study tips- part 3

Welcome to part 3 of my CCIE written study tips.  In the first post, I talked about what tools were available and which I recommended.  The second post was focused on creating a study pattern and using the tools.  This post will cover creating your own plan for CCIE written success.

If you’ve read through my last 2 posts, you’ve seen some of the available study tools available and you’ve figured out a pattern of study to follow.  Now that you have that in place, you can create an overall plan with a good degree of detail.

If I had to list 2 main factors to success in certification preparation, I would say that they would be having a good study plan, and putting in a consistent study effort over the long haul.  A lack of either of these will make the journey longer and more difficult.

Consistency

Let’s talk about the consistency part first.  For most people, the CCIE pursuit is a marathon and not a sprint.  Unless you are already a Cisco wiz, plan on at least 2-3 months of preparation for the written exam.  Though it could take much longer.  Personally, I took nearly 5 month from start to passing my written exam.  Since it’s going to take some time, you need to find a pace that you can keep up over the course of your studies.  This will be different for everyone based on their situation.  But I would try to devote at least a couple of hours most days during the week and double that if possible on the weekends.

The more hours you put in the faster you’ll be able to pass the test.  That’s a pretty obvious statement, but the actual mechanics of it aren’t always so obvious.  From my experience, I have found that my total study hours tends to be lower when I put in more hours per week than when I put in fewer.  For instance, if I averaged 15 hours per week it may have taken me 8 weeks to pass the test (120 total hours).  If I averaged 8 hours per week, it may have taken me 20 weeks (160 total hours).  These are arbitrary numbers used to illustrate my point.  But there are a couple of contributing factors that cause this.

The slower you go, the more memory leak you have to deal with.  The synapse connections in your brain fade over time.  So the longer you take, the more you have to deal with that.  This will result in having to go over previous material more times.  Also, the slower you go, the more opportunities you have to get into slumps.  These are periods where you aren’t doing much study at all.

On the flip side, going too fast can cause burn-out.  Plus, if you go to fast, you can get into cram mode and your brain can’t process all of the material and you have to go back over it again.  So you need to find a groove that will allow you to keep a good pace, but not wear yourself out.

Creating a plan

Once you have an idea of a study schedule in terms of days and hours, you can create a pretty detailed study plan.  When you create your plan, start at a higher level view of things.  For the written exam, break up your plan into sections by topic.  The blueprint is a good place to start.  Once you’ve broken things into topics, write down what you want to do to study for each topic.  This is where your study pattern will come into play.  For instance, your study actions for EIGRP might be the following.

• Read the EIGRP chapter in the Exam Certification Guide
• Read the EIGRP chapter in Routing TCP/IP vol 1
• Watch the EIGRP videos from the IP Expert BLS
• Do the EIGRP lab from the IP Expert volume 1 workbook
• Answer the book chapter review questions and Boson practice exam questions related to EIGRP
• Review any weak areas

Now you have some specific action items to accomplish.  Once you have these written out, put a time-line to it.  That will help keep you on track.  After a little while, you’ll get pretty good at estimating study times.  You don’t need to write out these action items for every topic from the beginning.  But be sure to have them written out for your current topic as well as your next topic.  That way, you always know what you should be doing every day when you sit down to study.

One last thing that you’ll want to do is to re-analyze your plan every so often to see how well it’s working for you.  You might find that you need to adjust the number of hours you are putting in, or that you want to change your study pattern.  Do what you need to make sure that your plan works for you.

Other tips

Here are a few other general tips regarding your CCIE preparation.

• If you have a spouse or significant other, make sure they know up front what your schedule is going to be and how it will affect your time with them.  Try and be specific.  You need to make sure that they are on board.  If you don’t have their support, it will make things hard.
• Keep a record of your activities.  It helps you to keep yourself honest.  Personally I have a spreadsheet that tracks what I do along with my start and end times for each study sessions.  It makes it easy to see if you are meeting your weekly study hour goals.
• Find a study partner or someone to keep yourself accountable to.  It’ll help keep you on track.  That’s one of the reasons I started my blog.  I figured that if I put my progress out there for the whole world to see, I won’t want to make myself look like a slacker.
• Be sure to review old topics from time to time to keep them in memory.  Chapter reviews and practice tests are good for this.
• Put a priority on your studies.  You’ll probably need to give up some things for a while to meet your goals.
• Don’t let the CCIE be your only priority.  You want to make sure that you have a life to return to when you’re done.

Good luck!

Well, that’s all I have to say about that.  My hope is that people can find some methods or principles in these articles that they can put into practical use.  But there is no single correct way to prepare for the test and everyone needs to find what works for them.  I wish you all good luck in your studies and hope we can all see each other at the finish line!

CCIE written study tips- part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my CCIE written study tips.  In the first post, I talked about what tools were available and which I recommended.  This post will focus on creating a study pattern and using the tools.  I’ll follow up with one more post to bring everything to a close.

Creating a study pattern

For the written, you do not really need to concern yourself with how to implement the technologies too much.  Your main focus will be knowing how the technologies work and the details behind them.  So your main mode of study will be reading books, Cisco documentation, and watching instructional videos (if you purchased them).  Hands-on labbing will be used to reinforce your book learning.

Your exact study pattern will vary depending on your available tools.  But my pattern is to tackle one subject at a time, and learn it well before moving on to the next subject.  I also try and learn the core subjects first.  If you read the Exam Certification Guide, you can pretty much go in order of the chapters.  When I’m learning a subject, here is my typical pattern.

1. Read about the subject
2. Watch a video on the subject
3. Practice the subject in a lab
4. Assess myself on the subject
5. Re-read certain topics of the subject that my assessment shows did not sink in

This template can be altered to fit your personal study style or available tools.  But the important part is finding a method that works for you.  Some people may want to watch videos before reading.  Or maybe they will do a quick read through a topic, practice the basics in a lab, then follow up with a second deep read-through and labbing.  Whatever works for you.  But let’s talk about each of these study methods.

Reading

This is the cornerstone of your CCIE written studies.  This test focuses on details.  You really won’t get these details anywhere else.  As you read about each topic, try and read from at least 2 sources.  So read the Exam Certification Guide chapters, and then read from Routing TPC/IP and/or the Cisco documentation on the subject.  It will serve to reinforce the information, fill gaps, and possibly explain things differently in a way that makes more sense.  Personally, I prefer reading a hard-copy of the material and underlining important items.  Optionally, you can takes notes for later review.

Watching Videos

Videos can be an excellent companion to your reading.  I have found the videos from Internetwork Expert and IP Expert to be very helpful.  Even though they are lab focused and not written exam focused.  One of the great things about these videos is that they go through hands-on examples of most technologies.  After learning the theory, watching it take place can really bring it all together.  Don’t get too worried about trying to comprehend the topics in the videos that are lab specific.  Right now, this is mainly for reinforcement and greater understanding of your reading.

Practice Labs

This is where you can really lock things in.  There’s something about actually doing the stuff yourself that makes the concepts really sink in and stick in your memory.  This is where the volume 1 workbooks from Internetwork Expert or IP Expert really help.  They lead you through labs that focus on one subject at a time.  You can come up with your own labs if you want.  But the idea is efficiency.  They have already created great labs that are effective at helping you learn technologies.  So if you have them available, use them.  As with the videos, these are focused on lab preparation.  So don’t get too caught up in trying to comprehend every last task.  Use these labs as a way to observe how the technologies work and the basics of their configurations.  Use lots of “show” and “debug” commands for verification.  This is where you’ll see a lot of the details of each technology that will be present in the written exam.

Subject Assessments

Now that you’ve absorbed the material, it’s time to see how much of it sunk in.  There are a few good tools for this.  First, each of the books has review sections or quizzes at the beginning or ends of the chapters.  Go through these and see if there are particular aspects of the subjects where you need to go back and review.  Also, use the Boson practice exams included in the Exam Certification Guide.  It’s not the greatest, and there are some errors.  But it can be helpful for self assessment.  The Net Master Class written practice exam is a pretty good assessment tool as well.

Another good use of the assessment tools is for review.  I like to use the practice tests to review previous subjects every week or so.  It helps to prevent memory leakage by keeping the topics somewhat fresh in your head.  The book questions would be good for this too.  I can be tough to recall things from 2 months back if you haven’t thought of them since then.

To be continued…

I’ll write one more final post in a few days going over how to bring this all together into a specific plan for success.

CCIE written study tips- part 1

As promised, here are my suggestions in regards to prepping for the CCIE written.  Just to be clear, I am not an expert.  These are just some observations on how I would do things if I had to start over from scratch.

I am of the mindset that the written exam should be your main focus from the beginning.  You should get that out of the way and then focus on the lab.  Other will focus mainly on the lab from the beginning and kind of throw in the written exam somewhere down the line.  Both plans work.  But I think there are advantages to focusing on the written exam first.  The written exam requires you to learn a bit more of the theory behind the topics and a lot of the technical details.  These are important foundations for lab preparation.  Also, I like the idea of getting the written exam out of the way so that once I do focus on the lab exam, I don’t really ever have to shift my focus away.  Of course, you do have to pass the written exam before you can even schedule the lab exam.  If you have a target date for the lab that you really want to hit, be sure to at least pass your written exam 2-3 months before then.

So for me, the goal then is to efficiently study for and pass the written exam while getting as much benefit as possible towards passing the lab exam.  In order to do that, let’s look at some tools to use for studying.

Books

These are the books that I would recommend picking up for your written studies.  I consider these must-haves.  In addition to the books, you’ll want to be using the documentation on Cisco’s website as a study source.
• Cisco Press- Official Exam Certification Guide
• Cisco Press- Routing TCP/IP volume 1
• Cisco Press- Routing TCP/IP volume 2

For the written test, these will definitely get you by.  You may pick up one or 2 more when it comes time to focus on the lab.  But you don’t really need to worry about them now.

Practice Exams

You will get a Boson practice exam program with the Official Exam Certification Guide.  It’s not what most people would call a high-quality product.  But it is helpful, and you get it included in the book.  So use it.  If you feel that you want some better practice exams, check out the practice exam from NetMasterClass.com.  They have a pretty good product available for $99.  I liked it much more than the Boson exams.

Instructional Videos

You can purchase these from most CCIE training vendors.  Look for videos that focus on the CCIE technologies as opposed to just bootcamp videos.  These are excellent companions to the books.  If you are going to purchase these for lab preparation, get them early so you can use them for your written preparation.

From my personal experience, the videos included in the IP Expert Blended Learning Solution as well as the Advanced Technologies Class on Demand videos from Internetwork Expert are great videos to use.

Workbooks

You can also purchase workbooks from CCIE training vendors.  Look for workbooks that have exercises focuses on specific technologies as opposed to workbooks that replicate the full CCIE lab. Hands-on practice is a great leaning tool, and good workbooks will get you exposed to all aspects of the technologies.  Just coming up with you own practice scenarios won’t always expose you to all of the things that you should experience.  Again, if you are going to buy these for lab preparation, get them early so you can use them for your written preparation.

From my experience, the Volume 1 workbooks from both IP Expert and Internetwork Expert are great technology specific workbooks.

Training Packages

Some of these tools are included in some great packages from CCIE training vendors.  Definitely look into them.  IP Expert has their Blended Learning Solution which has videos, audio files, and 3 different workbooks for about $2000.  There are also some extra miscellaneous things in the package.  Keep an eye out, because it goes on sale for $1000 every so often.  Internetwork Expert has their CCIE 2.0 package for about $3000.  It has tons of videos, 3 workbooks, and some other unique learning tools.  A cheaper alternative from them is to just buy the Advanced Technologies Class on Demand and 3 workbooks for around $1300.  Both vendors have payment plans to ease the pain.  I highly suggest getting a package from at least one of these vendors.  They are both great products.  I own both.

Study Plan

Since this post is getting long, I’m going to break off the study plan itself into another one to come later.  Look for part 2 to come soon!

Written Exam Review

I had good intentions of getting this up earlier.  But time seems to pass so quickly.  For those of you who didn’t read my last post, I passed my written exam on February 5.  This is a review of the test.  I’ll talk about preparation suggestions on another post.

The test was still under the old format when I took it.  Scoring range was on a scale from 0-100 with 70 being the passing mark.  The test is 120 minutes.  I had 105 questions given to me.  The scoring method of the test is changing soon.  But I believe the number of questions and time length will remain the same.  I’m pretty sure the new passing score will keep the test around the same difficulty level.  I also don’t believe the question pool is changing.

Obviously, I can’t say what I saw on the test in terms of technologies or subjects.  But I’ll try to be as helpful as I can in giving people direction on what to expect.  First off, this is different than CCNA/CCNP tests.  It is a purely written test, so there are not simulations on the exam.  No sense in having those when there is the 8-hour lab to test that kind of stuff.  Also, for those people who have taken some of the practice exams out there, you’ll often see them tell you to “select all that apply” for the multiple choice questions as opposed to telling you to select a specific number of answers.  You don’t need to worry about seeing that on the exam.  They will always tell you how many answers to select in the multiple choice questions.

The test is not a breeze.  There are a few things that made the test hard for me.  First, the range of topics covered in the exam is pretty wide.  You need to be knowledgeable about a lot of topics.  I did have a few topics that I wasn’t all that prepared on.  It showed in my score report.  I ran into questions that I just had no clue about.  Second, the questions needlessly turn themselves into trivia at times.  This was frustrating to me, because even though I often knew how the technologies worked, the trivia aspect of things complicated the questions.  Personally, I don’t think that’s a very effective method of testing.  I would elaborate, but I don’t want to break the NDA.  CCIE Pursuit touched on the most annoying part in his review if you want to read that.

The other thing that made the test harder was Cisco’s method of trying to determine if you understand a technology.  They don’t always just ask you a straight forward question to test your knowledge, they have to put a spin on it.  It then becomes a question of not only knowing the technology, but understanding what the question is looking for.  This can be done in an effective way that causes you to use critical thinking skills.  But it can also be done poorly using vague or weird scenarios.  I saw both.

On the positive side of things, you really shouldn’t experience time issues on this test.  I didn’t hit many questions that took a lot of analysis.  Most questions are pretty straight forward.  I believe I finished with about 25 minutes to spare.  As long as you are answering about 1 question per minute, you’re doing just fine.  Since you really don’t have to worry about any monster time wasting questions, it’s really easy to track how you are doing in that department.  I would say that the most detailed of questions shouldn’t take more than around 2-3 minutes to figure out.  This is nice because it allows you to keep a pretty consistent flow going.

Also, you will run into the easy questions.  Questions that a CCNA should be able to answer most of the time.  You probably won’t need to use the available marker board and marker very much.  I only used it on one question.  Very few of the questions I had required much computation or had a large number of things to keep straight.

At the end of the test, you get your immediate results.  Just like any other CCNx test.  Once you pass, and Cisco certifies the results, you’ll then have access to schedule your CCIE exam.  Be sure to hold on to your score report, because you’ll need info from that to get logged in to the CCIE site.  If you do lose it, you can get the info elsewhere.  But it’s nice to have it all in one place.

In the end, the test can be tricky at times, but definitely passable.  I know I could have prepared better.  But I wanted to give it a crack before the new format change coming up in a few weeks.  If you are comfortable with the material in the exam blueprint, you should do fine.

Only 15 pieces of flair

Well, I took my written exam today, and I nailed it.  Well actually, I nailed the passing score.  I came out of there scoring a 70 out of 100, which is the minimum passing score.  It’s like I’m working at Chachkis and only wearing 15 pieces of flair.

But if you look at it another way, I took the test at the earliest possible time in my learning curve where I could achieve a passing score.  That takes talent!  Now I can focus 100% on lab prep from here on out.

But hey… a pass is a pass.  I get my ticket to the big show just the same.  So tonight, I’m going to  drink some beers and celebrate!  I’ll write up a review on the test sometime this weekend.

You know you’re out of shape when…

I think I may have the distinction of being the only dude to half throw his back out while sitting on a couch doing practice labs.  I have to say, that’s not really the distinction that I was looking for when I started down this road.

In my defense, I think I did most of the damage shoveling snow earlier in the day.  I just happen to twist the wrong way when I turned to flip the page in my lab book.  Yet another reminder that I’m not as young and resilient as I once was.

I suppose working out should get added to the list of things to do after I get my CCIE and have an extra 20-30 hours/week freed up.  It seems like that list keeps getting longer and longer.