Failed BSCI again

Hey guys. Just got back from my exam. Failed the BSCI for a 3rd time. I admit hte first time I took this a while back and didn't really study as hard as I should but the last two times I felt really good especially today. I honestly thought I had this in the bag. I thought wrong. Got 755 out of 790 to pass. I know this is close which makes it even harder. The sim's I think are easy. what killed me before was Ipv6 and Multicast. I improved in both fields but still nothing super great. I think i got around 60% for both. ISIS which I did well on before killed me and I got around 42%. Bottom Line is I don't know my stuff and if i did i'd pass. Thing that bothers me is that I know for a fact at least 2 of the questions where something I'd never seen or herd before. I mean i have alot of study materal, Cisco press, CBT nuggets, labs, Bryant etc. and I never saw these.

My other biggest complaint which i've expressed is practice tests. All of the practice tests that are out there in my opinion is garabage compared to the real thing. I mean some tests are either too easy or are not like the real exam at all. I'm not asking for a test with similar answers but something with a good sim or two in it and soem really hard questions like the ones you will get on the exam.

I bought Transcender and I think that's garbage as well. I mean on the real exam they don't ask you all the subjects in order..you go from OSPF, to BGP, back to OSPF, IPV6. You guys know what i mean?

I guess i needed to vent and you are the only people that know what i'm talking about.

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Comments

qp81

iproute wrote: »

I'll agree that CBTNuggets MCast/IPv6 may not be sufficient for the needs of the exam but calling it a joke isn't accurate either. It seemed to me like a pretty decent introduction.

6 months straight just doing lab work? While it certainly wouldn't hurt (if you can devote yourself entirely to the effort), it seems excessive to me. The 4 routers comment would seem insufficient to me though. I've got a 15 router lab running in GNS3. It consists of ISIS, OSPF, EIGRP, IBGP and EBGP all internetworked. I've been working on getting this beast up and running for the past week and have been "tweaking" it with the concepts learned from study more recently.

Maybe some of the CCNPs in here could comment on this idea and offer suggestions?

I like that idea....would you mind sharing your topology? I've got a physical lab about 12 routers 15 if you add the juniper boxes....anyway I'd like to try this out if you don't mind sharing. TIA

Forsaken_GA

That many routers is, IMHO, overkill with BSCI. I did my prep for it with 4. You can do plenty of tweaking and testing and just playing around, and changing things on a whim when you think 'Hrm, I wonder what happens if I do this...' Although 12 routers, if they're all capable of doing IS-IS, will let you get in some killer practice on that.

Lab-time is pretty much the end-all be-all of BSCI. If you put in enough, you'll pass the exam pretty easily, but you need to coordinate your lab time with your book learning. It does you no good to configure OSPF in multi-area with a stub and an NSSA area if you only do it once and it works exactly as you expect. You need to watch the debug messages to understand how and what the routers are communicating, take a look at the adjacencies to see if they're forming as you expect. Break some links and see what happens. Take a look at your topology databases. The devil is in the details (especially with EIGRP).

Find out what sections are giving you trouble and bear down on them. And if it's BGP, do yourself a favor and pickup a copy of Halabi's Internet Routing Architectures. The CCNP BGP material is horribly shallow, and BGP is one of those subjects where it's ok to overstudy.

The BSCI IPV6 coverage is very cursory. What's in the authorized self-study guide is enough. Multicast...... all I'm going to say is that I hate multicast with a passion and leave it at that.

iproute

Sure. I'll try to upload a copy of my topology (it's very messy though and hand written).

On the time needed. It probably depends on the individual. Here's what I've put in so far (I take the test for the first time tomorrow):

- Took a BSCI 5 day class about a year ago. Probably don't remember TOO much from that but it is what it is.
- Started heavy study on BSCI a month ago.
- Watched CBTNuggets BSCI videos about 2x each.
- Read the Cisco Press book cover to cover next (some sections 2x).
- Have been doing my own config scenarios with real (x6 2600's) and virtualized routers (GNS3 - I love this software, though it's a bit difficult to find the sweet spot for this app, lots of bugs, lots of crashing, lots of trial and error, use online tutorials) for the whole month.
- Right now (night before exam) I went through the Cisco press book and noted all (or most) of the configuration concepts and I'm creating configurations in GNS3 to cement those concepts (85%-90% of them having already been labbed several times)

Will it be enough? I hope so

Stay tuned for the verdict.

iproute

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Lab-time is pretty much the end-all be-all of BSCI. If you put in enough, you'll pass the exam pretty easily, but you need to coordinate your lab time with your book learning. It does you no good to configure OSPF in multi-area with a stub and an NSSA area if you only do it once and it works exactly as you expect. You need to watch the debug messages to understand how and what the routers are communicating, take a look at the adjacencies to see if they're forming as you expect.

As I've not taken the exam yet, I can't really be an authority on this but I couldn't agree more. Do everything you can to KNOW what goes on behind the scenes. KNOW what's going to happen when you take down a link. Just making it work probably won't be enough.

qp81

i'm gearing up for some lab time, a lot of personal/work related events has been preventing me to get a good sit down. Planning to sit in 3 weeks hopefully I'll get enough lab time and reading done by then. 16 hour work days is no fun!

iproute

The results are in and I've join the ranks of... well pretty much everyone that I've talked to in that I failed the first attempt (750, 790 needed). Not too bad an effort, really.

Here are my thoughts:

- While roughly 1 month of very rigorous study might be *almost* enough to score a pass, it's probably not good enough for most (me included). My study materials are noted previously in this post so folks can take it for what it's worth.

- $150.00 isn't really too expensive a price to learn the gravity of this test. It is big. It is mean. It is ugly! It will have you crying for mama. But the only way to know if you're ready for it is unfortunately after you finish. A week or two of additional study would have probably put me over the top. But how was I to know a week or two from 3 - 5 months? I spent money but am thankful for the experience. I know how I'll need to strike next time. At the same time, I think another month of study will well position me for a very decent pass.

- There are plenty of nuances not covered (at least in sufficient detail) in the material I used; or maybe I simply didn't remember them. That's not a shot fired at the material, but a realization that additional sources will be needed. Fact is, I was under-prepared as I think many/most folks are with this exam for the first time, despite warnings from BSCI veterans.

- Configuration is key. If you can configure something, well that just might not be good enough. How can you get better? Be able to do it in your sleep. The best advice I can provide on this topic is practice, practice, practice. The kind of knowledge that will put you over the top is the kind that can only be gained by doing something over and over and over again. The reason is the hasty time period stamped on this test. The time-frame will force you to be able to do it fast OR hit "next" before you feel 100% sure in your config. The later option doesn't result in getting the maximum points from simulations, let me tell ya.

- As with most (all?) Cisco tests, if you get the bulk of your simulation questions up front, it's going to hurt. It's going to leave your time remaining low and your questions remaining high. Don't know what to say on this one, other than that speed + accuracy is your best friend with this test. Emphasizes the previous point.

- Multicast/IPv6... Wow. I almost feel like I should have read the book on multicast before taking this exam. One CBT nuggets video and the chapters from the Cisco Press BSCI book aren't going to get you there. On IPv6, well I didn't do too bad. I'd call the prep in that area "sufficient."

Forsaken_GA

iproute wrote: »

- $150.00 isn't really too expensive a price to learn the gravity of this test. It is big. It is mean. It is ugly! It will have you crying for mama. But the only way to know if you're ready for it is unfortunately after you finish. A week or two of additional study would have probably put me over the top. But how was I to know a week or two from 3 - 5 months? I spent money but am thankful for the experience. I know how I'll need to strike next time. At the same time, I think another month of study will well position me for a very decent pass.

Well, the good news is that it's only BSCI that's like that. It has so much material to cover, that it's difficult to adequately prepare for it. I took the prior version of the BSCI, and I passed it.. by 10 points. I had thought I had failed and failed miserably when I submitted it. It scared me off cisco material for such a length of time that I ended up having to take the current version as well. At least this time I knew what I was up against. Compared to BSCI, the other exams are pathetically simple.

- There are plenty of nuances not covered (at least in sufficient detail) in the material I used; or maybe I simply didn't remember them. That's not a shot fired at the material, but a realization that additional sources will be needed. Fact is, I was under-prepared as I think many/most folks are with this exam for the first time, despite warnings from BSCI veterans.

Yeah, again, that's part of the problem with the range of material that BSCI covers. It's hard to adequately prepare for the fact that they can toss pretty much anything out of 4 IGP's at you, and then there's the BGP questions... the official material does NOT cover it in the detail the exam will, and I suspect that probably toasts a good many candidates. Toss mutlicast into the mix and it's really tough to make sure you have all the bases covered. I'll be very interested to see the replacement exams blueprint.

- Configuration is key. If you can configure something, well that just might not be good enough. How can you get better? Be able to do it in your sleep. The best advice I can provide on this topic is practice, practice, practice. The kind of knowledge that will put you over the top is the kind that can only be gained by doing something over and over and over again. The reason is the hasty time period stamped on this test. The time-frame will force you to be able to do it fast OR hit "next" before you feel 100% sure in your config. The later option doesn't result in getting the maximum points from simulations, let me tell ya.

Yeah, this is good advice. I didn't find the sims to be difficult at all, I think I spent more time double checking to make sure I met all the goals of the sim than I did actually configuring what they asked me to. I know the sims are heavily weighted, so I've always been paranoid before I move on.

- As with most (all?) Cisco tests, if you get the bulk of your simulation questions up front, it's going to hurt. It's going to leave your time remaining low and your questions remaining high. Don't know what to say on this one, other than that speed + accuracy is your best friend with this test. Emphasizes the previous point.

I think this is more an individual thing. I personally love getting my sims up front, once I'm passed them, I know I've pretty much just got the other formats left, and if I know I nailed the sims, it tends to settle me down a bit, as I know I just have the regular questions left. On the other hand, I tend to move quickly through the rest of the question types (save for the case study types). It took me 20 minutes to move through 65 questions for the CCDP yesterday. About the only thing that will hold me up on those types of questions is when I have to do math, but otherwise, I don't really see the point in spending much more time on a question than it takes to read it and the answers - I either know it, or I don't. If I know it, good, I mark the question, and I move on. If I don't, I make an educated guess and still move on. Otherwise, you put yourself in a time crunch, and you're forced to make potentially bad decisions, or (even worse) misread a question
because you're in a hurry.

- Multicast/IPv6... Wow. I almost feel like I should have read the book on multicast before taking this exam. One CBT nuggets video and the chapters from the Cisco Press BSCI book aren't going to get you there. On IPv6, well I didn't do too bad. I'd call the prep in that area "sufficient."

As I've said before, the amount of ip6 coverage is very cursory, and very basic. No one should really sweat it, but because it's 'new' and different, people do. The official material covers it adequately enough. Multicast..... I'll save my multicast rants for when I get into serious CCIE prep

networker050184

Which Cisco Press book did you have? If it was the exam cert guide I'd recommend you check out the study guide. It is more geared towards teaching the material rather than review which it sounds like you need. I would also recommend Routing TCP/IP Volume I if you still don't feel the material has been covered well. For multicast and IPv6 I read a lot of Cisco docs for configs and did a bit of googling for more information.

iproute

networker050184 wrote: »

Which Cisco Press book did you have? If it was the exam cert guide I'd recommend you check out the study guide. It is more geared towards teaching the material rather than review which it sounds like you need. I would also recommend Routing TCP/IP Volume I if you still don't feel the material has been covered well. For multicast and IPv6 I read a lot of Cisco docs for configs and did a bit of googling for more information.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Yes I have the "CCNP BSCI Official Exam Certification Guide, Fourth Edition." Since I feel that I need some additional sources, I may pick this up today.

I have to wonder though: If I re-visit the Exam Cert Guide and do some additional investigation on multicast (and perhaps a few other topics) via the Google, would that be just as effective, cheaper and less redundant info?

I really think that multicast was the area I was least prepared for, so I want to sink some significant time into that. As noted, documents available online might be sufficient to bring me up to par.

slinuxuzer

sorry to hear that you failed, your so close dont give up. If one particular section is killing you then my advice is to kill back, since your so close to passing I would focus my restudy 90% on that and try to become a expert in that area. As far as transcender I believe they have a gurantee that if you buy their product and then fail the exam they refund the price of their product, you should definatley look into this.

good luck

iproute

Ordered Routing TCP/IP Vol 1 (2nd Ed). Going to use that to shore up my non-Multicast weak areas. Going to seek some online documentation for Multicast. I'd just hit Multicast heavily and re-take, but I don't want to eek by. I want to kill this thing and be that much closer to "ready" for CCIE.

Thanks again for the feedback guys.

qp81

sorry to hear that...You'll do good on that next one. I'e take taht damn monster 3 time didn't even get to the 700 mark. I'm labbing my ass off right now. Learned a few new things I know i missed.