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.