Linux+ with WGU

E_IT

markulous wrote: »

Ugh...I scheduled the exam but the only available time they had that fits my schedule is May 9th. I wanted to take it this Saturday or even after work, but there wasn't anything I saw.

I hated when that happened. What I did is start scheduling the exams early into studying. That way I had a set date I knew I had to be ready to take the exam. Kind of gives you a little incentive to get crap done so you will be ready... instead of study study, then wait to take the exam while you have already peaked so to speak. I have been lucky enough to have awesome mentors (3) that I could just email and say I need an approval for xyz class and they would give it to me immediately. I hear some will not do this.

I scored a 760 on 101 and 780 on 102. I do enjoy Linux A LOT. So studying was easier for me, I guess. The main thing on these exams are the fill in the blanks. If i remember correctly I had something like 18-20 of them. They will want commands, file paths, on almost all of them. Don't get to worried though. Plenty of redundant questions that you have seen on several of your cert test already. Things like protocols and ports, CIDR, SQL and basic networking commands. Be familiar with printing and how to manipulate users etc... you will be fine. Best of Luck.

markulous

Thanks!

They make me take the practice exam and get a 90% typically before the voucher will be issued, so it's hard. I can Google the answers to get the answers right, but then it'd take me a couple weeks to study and that would probably look a little fishy.

They have questions on CIDR and subnetting? Wow, I'd love to have some of those gimmies. I am pretty nervous about the fill in the blank.

E_IT

markulous wrote: »

Thanks!

They make me take the practice exam and get a 90% typically before the voucher will be issued, so it's hard. I can Google the answers to get the answers right, but then it'd take me a couple weeks to study and that would probably look a little fishy.

They have questions on CIDR and subnetting? Wow, I'd love to have some of those gimmies. I am pretty nervous about the fill in the blank.

I would try talking to you mentor and see if he/she won't ease up a bit to help you out. You can always change mentors. I haven't spoken to mine other than email or text message in months. It only made sense to me. I found it more difficult to study and be ready to take exam then have to wait 2 weeks for a spot to open. That is why early on I put the nix on that crap. All my mentors agreed. As long as you are making OTP and passing exams that's all they care about. The start getting fired when students aren't finishing their pulled courses in their allotted term. Not very fair if you ask me. The course mentors are the ones that should be more responsible IMO.... but that is a whole other topic lol.

yup you will see... avail host on a /16 etc... you will be fine... remember not all of the questions even count toward your score. One thing to note!! Linux is very CASE SENSITIVE. ie... /etc/Skel is not the same as /etc/skel/

stryder144

markulous wrote: »

Ugh...I scheduled the exam but the only available time they had that fits my schedule is May 9th. I wanted to take it this Saturday or even after work, but there wasn't anything I saw.

Did you try Arapahoe Community College? They typically have Saturday testing available.

markulous

E_IT wrote: »

I would try talking to you mentor and see if he/she won't ease up a bit to help you out. You can always change mentors. I haven't spoken to mine other than email or text message in months. It only made sense to me. I found it more difficult to study and be ready to take exam then have to wait 2 weeks for a spot to open. That is why early on I put the nix on that crap. All my mentors agreed. As long as you are making OTP and passing exams that's all they care about. The start getting fired when students aren't finishing their pulled courses in their allotted term. Not very fair if you ask me. The course mentors are the ones that should be more responsible IMO.... but that is a whole other topic lol.

yup you will see... avail host on a /16 etc... you will be fine... remember not all of the questions even count toward your score. One thing to note!! Linux is very CASE SENSITIVE. ie... /etc/Skel is not the same as /etc/skel/

Well, I'm almost done with the entire program, so I'm not really going to throw a fuss about anything. I've got 102, that SQL course (which is just an online exam, not a cert anymore) then my tech writing and Capstone.

Wow, that's awesome they have gimme questions like that. Not once have I see anything like that on any of the LabSim practice questions for some reason.

stryder144 wrote: »

Did you try Arapahoe Community College? They typically have Saturday testing available.

No, I haven't checked there. I typically go to the tech school up on Airport Rd and 6th avenue. They have Saturday classes, but looks like they are just doing every other Saturday at this time. It's a bit closer to my house than anything near Littleton.

hurricane1091

I have 6 videos left in the CBT series I'm finishing up this week so I'll let you know how I do when I take it. I only read the first 2 chapters so far, so I really need to do the 3 others. I should do all the labsims but I honestly might not. I've been labbing along side the CBT videos. It's hard because I started a Network Engineer position this week, and I started reading the CCNP book which is incredibly interesting, but I have to stay focused on Linux+ and it's hard because it's just not compelling, and I'm not going to need it in the near future.

And I just searched up testing centers. There's one in the city that appears to be a 20 minute walk from where I work, so I'm going to aim to take it on the 14th around lunch and head over there.

markulous

hurricane1091 wrote: »

I have 6 videos left in the CBT series I'm finishing up this week so I'll let you know how I do when I take it. I only read the first 2 chapters so far, so I really need to do the 3 others. I should do all the labsims but I honestly might not. I've been labbing along side the CBT videos. It's hard because I started a Network Engineer position this week, and I started reading the CCNP book which is incredibly interesting, but I have to stay focused on Linux+ and it's hard because it's just not compelling, and I'm not going to need it in the near future.

And I just searched up testing centers. There's one in the city that appears to be a 20 minute walk from where I work, so I'm going to aim to take it on the 14th around lunch and head over there.

The actual sims in Labsim have boosted my confidence quite a bit. I would definitely recommend them if you were as panicked as I was.

hurricane1091

markulous wrote: »

The actual sims in Labsim have boosted my confidence quite a bit. I would definitely recommend them if you were as panicked as I was.

Ugh, I did not get a chance to study this weekend. I need to bang out 3 videos tonight and the other 3 tomorrow, and read the book weds/thurs/friday. Then going to try to do labsims and hopefully take the test next week. Super optimistic I know but we'll see.

markulous

hurricane1091 wrote: »

Ugh, I did not get a chance to study this weekend. I need to bang out 3 videos tonight and the other 3 tomorrow, and read the book weds/thurs/friday. Then going to try to do labsims and hopefully take the test next week. Super optimistic I know but we'll see.

You can do it! Hopefully we can both get this on the first try.

hurricane1091

markulous wrote: »

You can do it! Hopefully we can both get this on the first try.

You're definitely more prepared lol. I'm hoping it doesn't bite me in the ass for the second part.

hurricane1091

I will finish the last 2 CBT videos tonight and try and read some. Not sure 5/14 is realistic anymore unless I cram this weekend, but I do not think that will be possible do to family stuff on Saturday. Fell asleep last night after watching one video lol.

markulous

hurricane1091 wrote: »

I will finish the last 2 CBT videos tonight and try and read some. Not sure 5/14 is realistic anymore unless I cram this weekend, but I do not think that will be possible do to family stuff on Saturday. Fell asleep last night after watching one video lol.

I didn't watch all of them but they seemed like they had good info and followed along with the Linux+ objectives. Is there a huge rush to get it done for you? Might as well push it back a week if you need it.

hurricane1091

No huge rush. I just would like to take the 2nd part by the end of June and leave myself 3 months to do Project+, Security+, and Java class. Realistically I probably don't need 3 months for those 3 things but rather be safe than sorry. I just want to be done Linux too lol. It's frustrating because I started this new position and am reading the CCNP Route book when I can, and that stuff directly impacts my life now and is so much more interesting!

markulous

I'm off to the test...Ugh not feeling so confident...

markulous

Wow. A 350...haha this sucks. The labsim practice exam was irrelevant to this test. I seriously wish I could just skip this exam.

Biggest issue I have is that I went through all the commands off this huge **** sheet I have, went through all videos and tutorials, but still felt like I guessed on at least half the questions. Felt setup to fail almost. Not really a practical test either without command line. I'll pass it next weekend one way or another.

hurricane1091

What was it like? Can't believe you failed. I've decided 5/23 is the date for me. Nervous now though.

markulous

The LabSim seemed basic in comparison. It didn't seem to cover basic commands, but more specific ones and a lot of knowing about file directories. I'm going to try it again this weekend hopefully since I know what to expect more. It was just way more obscure than I expected. I'm going to go through the objectives again also. I remember looking at them initially and being OK with them. I probably got about 10-15 fill in the blank questions. Those were probably the toughest.

When I am unsure of answers I flag them to come back to later (a lot of times other questions will remind me or help me out) and I swear I flagged like 80% of them. lol

hurricane1091

I honestly did not expect it to be that hard, so I'm surprised. You're basically at the same skillset and knowledge as me too, so I'm going to have to really study hard I guess. I'm going to finish the 1st half of the book this week and I have to do the Labsims. I think there's like 4 domains and one big one that are mandatory. Hopefully you pass this weekend. Not really that far off. Did you do much labbing? I basically did everything the guy in the CBT videos did while watching. I always viewed the man page and took notes too. I really should lab without the videos running next to my VM. I'm not very compelled though, I guess I'm hoping I know enough. I'm with you though, it's hard to study for this thing when your heart isn't into it.

devils_haircut

I had a lot of trouble with the 101 exam as well. Failed it the first time. I don't think the TestOut material that WGU offers really syncs up with the exam material at all. I went through all the videos and exercises, then sat down for the exam and was like, "What...this wasn't in the material."

I scored really high the second time since I knew what kind of questions to expect, but the coursework alone wasn't good enough. I'm just glad I got those classes out of the way. I have a few CentOS and Ubuntu servers at work that I deal with on a sem-regular basis, but my knowledge pretty much revolves around the things I use those for. If you ask me about the "lpr" command or xinetd, I get that deer-in-headlights look.

hurricane1091

devils_haircut wrote: »

I had a lot of trouble with the 101 exam as well. Failed it the first time. I don't think the TestOut material that WGU offers really syncs up with the exam material at all. I went through all the videos and exercises, then sat down for the exam and was like, "What...this wasn't in the material."

I scored really high the second time since I knew what kind of questions to expect, but the coursework alone wasn't good enough. I'm just glad I got those classes out of the way. I have a few CentOS and Ubuntu servers at work that I deal with on a sem-regular basis, but my knowledge pretty much revolves around the things I use those for. If you ask me about the "lpr" command or xinetd, I get that deer-in-headlights look.

Lol I've never heard of that. Better not be on the 101!

markulous

hurricane1091 wrote: »

I honestly did not expect it to be that hard, so I'm surprised. You're basically at the same skillset and knowledge as me too, so I'm going to have to really study hard I guess. I'm going to finish the 1st half of the book this week and I have to do the Labsims. I think there's like 4 domains and one big one that are mandatory. Hopefully you pass this weekend. Not really that far off. Did you do much labbing? I basically did everything the guy in the CBT videos did while watching. I always viewed the man page and took notes too. I really should lab without the videos running next to my VM. I'm not very compelled though, I guess I'm hoping I know enough. I'm with you though, it's hard to study for this thing when your heart isn't into it.

I wouldn't say I was labbing like crazy, but any time I was studying I had a VM open of Mint, Ubuntu, or Fedora and would always run the command in there and look at the switches for it.

markulous

devils_haircut wrote: »

I had a lot of trouble with the 101 exam as well. Failed it the first time. I don't think the TestOut material that WGU offers really syncs up with the exam material at all. I went through all the videos and exercises, then sat down for the exam and was like, "What...this wasn't in the material."

I scored really high the second time since I knew what kind of questions to expect, but the coursework alone wasn't good enough. I'm just glad I got those classes out of the way. I have a few CentOS and Ubuntu servers at work that I deal with on a sem-regular basis, but my knowledge pretty much revolves around the things I use those for. If you ask me about the "lpr" command or xinetd, I get that deer-in-headlights look.

What did you do differently the second time around?

I felt the same way about questions that weren't in the material.

markulous

Alright, it's scheduled for this Saturday. I've never failed an exam twice, so not sure how that works paying out of pocket if I had to. I really hope I don't fail this next time.

H3||scr3am

I think WGU gives you 3 shots, so even if you fail not the end of the world, you can watch for discounted vouchers online...

Best of luck on the 2nd attempt you got this

markulous

Thanks! I really hope I've got this. 102 almost looks easier as I see some easy network questions that were mentioned earlier in this thread. Then I can move on and hopefully finish my degree soon.

hurricane1091

Damnit. Started doing the labsims. Did I not learn a single thing or something? I hate this. There's no conceptual understanding it's even looking for, just commands. Do you know what partitioning a hard drive means? Doesn't matter, we're just interested in you knowing the command. It's stuff like that. Frustrating.

markulous

Agreed, which kind of imposes issues when the test asks for something that they did not explicitly go over on the Labsim (which was quite a bit IMO).

hurricane1091

It's a pain in the ass for sure. I'm going to just re-read this book and really sit down and study a few key things and their variables.

markulous

Make sure you got the hierarchy down pat. I think it's impossible to drill down through 4 directories and name a specific file for a lot of things, but there were a couple questions on that. Multiple choice makes it easier in those instances though.

markulous

Passed with a 640. Much easier this time around after knowing what to expect. Going to aim for the 102 in two weeks since it seems there isn't much more material left in Labsim.