CCIE experience

keenon

I still toll this site from time to time and rarely post. However i wanted to share my experience. I was debating just retaking the written again but not wanting to spend the money without ever taking the lab it made me challenge it. so I spent the next 45 days labbing everyday small pieces and super labs on the weekend 8 hrs. on saturday and sunday to get my mental training for the experience.


First attempt Oct 15
I was a bit sloppy with time management on the TS section- didn't get to finish last 2 questions
Diag - Took a min to get my barrings but was able to get this done
Config - I felt pretty decent ( i had been labbing alot up til the day so i was pretty fast to read everything and get my strategy down) wasn't able to complete a couple of tasks, time management)
So i got my score report while i was still at the airport before flying out.

failed but passed all the sections

Second attempt Dec 15
I was solid with time management on the TS section- finished everything with time to spare
Diag - I felt pretty confident here
Config - I felt pretty confident ( i had been labbing alot up til the day so i was pretty fast to read everything and get my strategy down) finished everything with time to spare so alot of verifications)

This time my score report showed up the next morning
failed but passed all the sections again!

Needless to say very bummed, so I've mentally recounted everything and think which questions i may have messed up on. I plan to go back soon. For all that are prepping going don't let your fear make you run from it. the experience alone is worth trying it once

d4nz1g

Are you going for R&S? And what do you mean by passing all sections but still failing?? It seems soo weird .-.

Also, 3 is the magic number. Don't give up.

keenon

yep, RS

once i get this one down i plan to go full time studying SP written/lab

Bardlebee

keenon wrote: »

yep, RS

once i get this one down i plan to go full time studying SP written/lab

How long have you been studying in total for the R/S? What's your professional experience like? Curious what your background is like as I too am plugging away and am at like month 6 at the moment.

keenon

Bardlebee wrote: »

How long have you been studying in total for the R/S? What's your professional experience like? Curious what your background is like as I too am plugging away and am at like month 6 at the moment.

i'm an old timer in this. lol . I completed the NP-RS back in 2006 I have been working in the IT for 16yrs, I have been doing networking for longer than i remember something like 12-14 yrs. been supporting medium to large enterprises for about the same amount of time, passed written back in 2009 before first burn out retook back in 2014. I also hold NP in SP which i recently upgraded in 2015

gorebrush

To answer the question above, yes you can indeed pass all three sections and fail because the "overall" score isn't high enough. It's a tough break for anyone in that situation though because it means they must be close!

AwesomeGarrett

There is a blog post from Bruno regarding this subject.

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/blogs/unleashing-ccie-rs/2015/10/09/pass-pass-pass-fail

A pass in a section only signifies you achieved the minimum score for the section. You're probably loosing too many points in config which is around 70 points.

gorebrush

40-60% per section? Wow I didn't think it would be "that low" per section.

d4nz1g

Damn, its worser than failing all the three sections.

Bardlebee

Honestly when I try for my first go. A single section PASS will make me happy. haha!

Good luck on your next attempt man.

keenon

d4nz1g wrote: »

Damn, its worser than failing all the three sections.

True, I would have been more accepting of a fail in any of the sections at least i could say i failed something.

lostindaylight

I'm sorry about that Keenon.

Most people don't realize how much goes into this thing. You're pushing yourself week in and week out, no social life, puts stress on relationships, a lot of times work isn't understanding and they want you making them a priority. You expect a payoff from all that sacrifice, so it sucks when it doesn't come and you know you have to keep grinding.

Keep grinding man, I'm rooting for ya.

-lid

joelsfood

The failures are definitely heartbreaking (and no one who hasn't attempted a CCIE lab can truly understand), but you're definitely in a good place with them if you're already at passing level on all three sectinos. Don't let it get you down. When you get that pass, it will be even sweeter for the failures before. Trust me on this one.

Drackar

keenon,
I've known people fail the CCIE 6 and 7 times. Luckily, both engineers that I'm thinking of are CCIE's now. I don't know if that helps, but it sounds like you are almost there.

Make sure you post here when you finally get it!

keenon

during my last attempt there was a guy there on his 8th time. imo i would have stopped before then and pursued another track. current goal at this point is to make another attempt late spring or early summer.

Bardlebee

I dunno, 8 attempts is bad, but when you're SO CLOSE. When you're RIGHT THERE. I could see how I'd want to go back again and again. Though I would hope I'd learn I'd need to change something to pass.

Of course this is coming from someone who hasn't sat the lab yet.

joelsfood

There was someon there at my last attempt who was on #7. His view was that the labs themselves were best preparation for the lab, so hadn't done any boot camps, etc. It's an interesting (albeit expensive) way to go.

gorebrush

7 and 8 times? Rediculous - More money than sense.

joelsfood

I'd have to agree. particular;y for R&S track, where you can setup the w3hole lab topo in a VM host, and I believe both of the major training vendors offer free retakes on the R&S bootcamp, so no reason to only sit it once, you can really get your moneys worth out of the cost

rjon17469

This is very similar to my experience. I failed my first two RS attempts, but passed all of the sections.

My advice: revisit both the material and the strategy. On my third attempt (which I passed), I realized how much I still didn't know on my failing attempts. Additionally, I revisited my exam strategy based on my two failed attempts to speed up my troubleshooting and implementation steps.

gorebrush

rjon17469 wrote: »

This is very similar to my experience. I failed my first two RS attempts, but passed all of the sections.

My advice: revisit both the material and the strategy. On my third attempt (which I passed), I realized how much I still didn't know on my failing attempts. Additionally, I revisited my exam strategy based on my two failed attempts to speed up my troubleshooting and implementation steps.

I think the individuals who are going out and sitting the thing 6-7-8 times are obviously not carrying out this vital step in the middle. They probably just blindly go and reattempt without properly thinking about where they went wrong in the first place to address any gaps in their knowledge.

joelsfood

Also remember that rethinking your exam strategy might not just be about technical aspects. I know on my failed attempts, I spent the last few weeks befoer each one labbing every day, 6-10 hours per day, living and breathing the data center material. And every time, I ended up failing. So this last time around, I used pec labs only (so I didn't feel I'd wasted money if I jsut logged in and poked around), a few days a week, just touching on thigns I had questions on or wasn't sure about. I went 24 days (shortest time I could get) from deciding to take it again to actually showing up and testing. Night before, I enjoyed a bottle of wine and a big pizza and garlic knots, stayed up watching a bad movie (previous attempts I had a mild dinner, got to bed early, etc), and basically, just concentrated more on not adding any extra stress to my life, rather than being as prepared as possible. It worked, too. I think for myself, and many others, particularly a couple attempts in, you know all the tech, and elaborate preparation ends up just adding stress, and making you perform worse, not better. As we all know, the CCIE lab is as much about properly taking a CCIE lab, as it is about knowing the technology on the blueprint. Overstressing the technical preparedness, to the point that you've not gotten enough sleep, or you're too wired with stress, can often end up leading to a failure even if you know all of the technology front and back.

I followed the same principles during the test itself. Previous attempts, lunch break was spent thinking ahead to what I'd do next, what I might have missed, etc. This time, I took lunch break as an opportunity to relax and talk about slick track go-kart racing and how poorly Southerners do at it because they don't have experience driving on snow/ice.

EMcCaleb

While at Ciscolive - Latin America last year I asked one of the CCIE developers what's the most attempts he knew of. He said 27.

Fadakartel

EMcCaleb wrote: »

While at Ciscolive - Latin America last year I asked one of the CCIE developers what's the most attempts he knew of. He said 27.

WOW 27 attempts just wow

gorebrush

No, say it isn't so. That's amazing. They could have learned the whole lab inside out by that time...

Bardlebee

I'm hoping I won't be one of the guys that is in it 6-7 times. But I'm getting this thing no matter what. Thing is, no one is paying for any of this.. my training, nothing. So I am going to be cautious if/when I fail 2 or more times.