Passed LPI 102! My views

m26k9

I passed LPI 102 yesterday. Got 720/800 while got only 520/800 for 101. Actually I was unaware of the objective change and used LPI in a Nutshell to study and in the exam had a big surprise. Thanks to Varleg of this forum who pointed out the exam revision, I got the Sybex book and studied for the 102. I did 102 12 days after I took 101. I spent about 3 months in slow pace for 101 and did not want to waste that much time on 102 and went on overdrive.

So my overall impressions of the LPI:

1) 101 can be harder than 102, in the sense that you are required to memorize small details of commands, etc. But 102 covers a broader area so you do not need to know commands, options in greater detail. Atleast thats is what I felt.

2) The exam is not trying to trick you. I thought exams like CCNA or SCJP try to trick you in the questions. But these are pretty straightforward.

3) There is hardly any ambiguity in the answer choices.

4) If you are working on Linux machine, chances are you may have come across number of problems and required to edit a few scripts here and there. So you will mostly be familiar with the contents of LPIC-1.

5) LPIC-1 in general I thought was very very useful. There were many situations where I just cop pasted commands online to solve a problem, without having any idea what is going on. After doing LPIC-1, I feel I know what I had been doing. Maybe not exactly what is happening but have an idea.

6) I found every topic/objective of LPIC-1 very relavant on daily basis. Maybe except for 'printing' because we hardly use the command line to print anything.

I have some handwritten notes which I gathered from texts, online exams, etc. I will put them up so if anybody wants to go through.

Goodluck guys.

kimanyd

It's pretty rare to see someone do one of these. Congratulations, and thanks for the feedback!

m26k9

kimanyd wrote: »

It's pretty rare to see someone do one of these. Congratulations, and thanks for the feedback!

Thanks kimanyd.
I am on to Linux+. I got he Trascend practice questions and is hoping to do that without spending time on reading a text. But Linux+ is harder in the sense it needs a higher percentage to pass than LPI. Hope it goes well.

Bl8ckr0uter

m26k9 wrote: »

I passed LPI 102 yesterday. Got 720/800 while got only 520/800 for 101. Actually I was unaware of the objective change and used LPI in a Nutshell to study and in the exam had a big surprise. Thanks to Varleg of this forum who pointed out the exam revision, I got the Sybex book and studied for the 102. I did 102 12 days after I took 101. I spent about 3 months in slow pace for 101 and did not want to waste that much time on 102 and went on overdrive.

So my overall impressions of the LPI:

1) 101 can be harder than 102, in the sense that you are required to memorize small details of commands, etc. But 102 covers a broader area so you do not need to know commands, options in greater detail. Atleast thats is what I felt.

2) The exam is not trying to trick you. I thought exams like CCNA or SCJP try to trick you in the questions. But these are pretty straightforward.

3) There is hardly any ambiguity in the answer choices.

4) If you are working on Linux machine, chances are you may have come across number of problems and required to edit a few scripts here and there. So you will mostly be familiar with the contents of LPIC-1.

5) LPIC-1 in general I thought was very very useful. There were many situations where I just cop pasted commands online to solve a problem, without having any idea what is going on. After doing LPIC-1, I feel I know what I had been doing. Maybe not exactly what is happening but have an idea.

6) I found every topic/objective of LPIC-1 very relavant on daily basis. Maybe except for 'printing' because we hardly use the command line to print anything.

I have some handwritten notes which I gathered from texts, online exams, etc. I will put them up so if anybody wants to go through.

Goodluck guys.

Awesome. So what is the passing percentage for the LPIC?
And what distro did you use to study?

m26k9

knwminus wrote: »

Awesome. So what is the passing percentage for the LPIC?
And what distro did you use to study?

Thank you knwminus.
For LPIC you need to get 500/800 to pass.
I am using Ubuntu on daily basis. You may not find all the config files, etc, required for the exams, but I found at that it has a almost everything you would need to pass the exam.

Bl8ckr0uter

m26k9 wrote: »

Thank you knwminus.
For LPIC you need to get 500/800 to pass.
I am using Ubuntu on daily basis. You may not find all the config files, etc, required for the exams, but I found at that it has a almost everything you would need to pass the exam.

Cool. 2 more questions: How long have you been using linux and have you considered the UCP yet?

m26k9

knwminus wrote: »

Cool. 2 more questions: How long have you been using linux and have you considered the UCP yet?

I have been using Ubuntu exclusively for about 2 years now. But I am not one of those Linux power user or anything. I just do pretty much normal stuff. But I was aware of most of the contents in LPIC-1, but not in greater detail.

I wanted to Linux+ because it seems much more popular. Honestly these certifications will be resume boosters. I am not considering UCP at the moment. I want to finish Linux+ in a couple of weeks (if thats possible) and then thinking about IEEE WCET or CCENT or CAPM. Unfortunately I did only one business related subject in my undergrads so my chances of CAPM are pretty thin.

Bl8ckr0uter

m26k9 wrote: »

I have been using Ubuntu exclusively for about 2 years now. But I am not one of those Linux power user or anything. I just do pretty much normal stuff. But I was aware of most of the contents in LPIC-1, but not in greater detail.

I wanted to Linux+ because it seems much more popular. Honestly these certifications will be resume boosters. I am not considering UCP at the moment. I want to finish Linux+ in a couple of weeks (if thats possible) and then thinking about IEEE WCET or CCENT or CAPM. Unfortunately I did only one business related subject in my undergrads so my chances of CAPM are pretty thin.

It is interesting that you would go from LPIC to L+ but best of luck. I think I may be going the same route you are since (from what I have seen) LPIC is more respected. I might go (when I start Linux cets) L+, LPIC 1 (lvl 1) LPIC 2 RHCT RHCE. I am thinking this would be the best path for me.

Best of look with whatever you do next. I am sure you will be able to knock it down.

m26k9

knwminus wrote: »

It is interesting that you would go from LPIC to L+ but best of luck. I think I may be going the same route you are since (from what I have seen) LPIC is more respected. I might go (when I start Linux cets) L+, LPIC 1 (lvl 1) LPIC 2 RHCT RHCE. I am thinking this would be the best path for me.

Best of look with whatever you do next. I am sure you will be able to knock it down.

Thank you knwminus. Best of luck to you too.
I think LPIC-1 is much better as a learning project.
For example, while I was using Ubuntu, I had to work a lot with files and commands like xorg.conf, modprobe, /etc/init.d, etc., while troubleshooting. I wanted to learn these and looked for books and many books written about Linux only talk about installation, package management with Synaptic or RPM, etc. All basic stuff. Then when I looked for LPIC objectives I saw that is goes in to detail of many things that we encounter in daily usage. I have to say I am extremely happy with the LPIC contents. I will not be going for level-2, but I gained a lot from level-1. And most importantly, while studying for LPIC, I came to truly admire Linux. How everything is documented and how every process is neatly interconnected, how almost everything is configurable, etc.

kimanyd

A, sumimasen. Omedetou gozaimasu. Nihonjin desu ka.

The Linux+ is also more difficult because it's much more obscure. The LPI exams seem to be much more straight-forward. If I can do it, so can you. I'd check out Transcender as that helped me a great deal with the L+.

m26k9

kimanyd wrote: »

A, sumimasen. Omedetou gozaimasu. Nihonjin desu ka.

The Linux+ is also more difficult because it's much more obscure. The LPI exams seem to be much more straight-forward. If I can do it, so can you. I'd check out Transcender as that helped me a great deal with the L+.

Arigatougozaimau.
Nihonjin dewa arimasen... nihon ni sunderu ryugakusei desu..

I already bought the Transcend practice exams.. I have heard many people saying it is better... I am hoping to finish this soon... but unlike LPIC, you fail Linux+ and you lose #300..LPIC it is just half as much...

varelg

m26k9 wrote: »

I passed LPI 102 yesterday. Got 720/800 while got only 520/800 for 101. Actually I was unaware of the objective change and used LPI in a Nutshell to study and in the exam had a big surprise. Thanks to Varleg of this forum who pointed out the exam revision, I got the Sybex book and studied for the 102. I did 102 12 days after I took 101. I spent about 3 months in slow pace for 101 and did not want to waste that much time on 102 and went on overdrive.

So my overall impressions of the LPI:

1) 101 can be harder than 102, in the sense that you are required to memorize small details of commands, etc. But 102 covers a broader area so you do not need to know commands, options in greater detail. Atleast thats is what I felt.

2) The exam is not trying to trick you. I thought exams like CCNA or SCJP try to trick you in the questions. But these are pretty straightforward.

3) There is hardly any ambiguity in the answer choices.

4) If you are working on Linux machine, chances are you may have come across number of problems and required to edit a few scripts here and there. So you will mostly be familiar with the contents of LPIC-1.

5) LPIC-1 in general I thought was very very useful. There were many situations where I just cop pasted commands online to solve a problem, without having any idea what is going on. After doing LPIC-1, I feel I know what I had been doing. Maybe not exactly what is happening but have an idea.

6) I found every topic/objective of LPIC-1 very relavant on daily basis. Maybe except for 'printing' because we hardly use the command line to print anything.

I have some handwritten notes which I gathered from texts, online exams, etc. I will put them up so if anybody wants to go through.

Goodluck guys.

Since I don't know any japanese, I'll just clap my hands in congradulations
And thank you for the summary you've given above. I've been looking for something like that FOR MONTHS, a description of look-n-feel of the exam.
Have a cold one on me. I am about to sit the 101, although I don't think I've covered all bases 100%, I feel confident. I am now in the stage of final reviews but I am growing tired of it. Any free simulators out there for the revised 101 beside what's on offer here?

kimanyd

Sou desu ka. Sugoi. Nani o benkyoshimasu ka.

Wow, those LPI exams must be brutal. I've only done Linux+ and I, um, really wasn't a fan.

m26k9

varelg wrote: »

Since I don't know any japanese, I'll just clap my hands in congradulations
And thank you for the summary you've given above. I've been looking for something like that FOR MONTHS, a description of look-n-feel of the exam.
Have a cold one on me. I am about to sit the 101, although I don't think I've covered all bases 100%, I feel confident. I am now in the stage of final reviews but I am growing tired of it. Any free simulators out there for the revised 101 beside what's on offer here?

Thank you Varelg. A big thank you for pointing out to me that I had been studying outdated material. I probably would have failed if I kept studying the Nutshell book.

The main problem I found when preparing was lack of practice questions. There isn't much online and what I found were on the old syllabus. Anyway I did these two:
Free MCSE, Cisco, CompTIA, LPI, Red Hat, and CIW Exams
PenguinTutor - Linux Tutorials and LPI Certification Practice Exams Quiz Start Page

They have pretty good questions, and IMO I think the difficulty is about the same as the exam. But beware they do not have any questions on, for example YUM because I think they are on the old syllabus. But overall good questions to get a feel for the exam.
Do not worry. This exam does not try to make itself hard.

But pay attention to spelling. For example, the answer to the first question I got in 101 was 'dmesg'. But it was not a multiple choice. I had to write it. Now if I got multiple choices I could have easily clicked on 'dmesg', but when I had to write it, at that moment I forgot the spelling! I wasn't sure if it was 'dmesg' or 'dmseg' or something else. So it gets a little confusing when you need to write the answer than choosing it.

Good luck on the exam mate.

m26k9

kimanyd wrote: »

Sou desu ka. Sugoi. Nani o benkyoshimasu ka.

Wow, those LPI exams must be brutal. I've only done Linux+ and I, um, really wasn't a fan.

Watashi broadband wireless o' benkyoushimasu. Nihon e' itta kotho arimasuka? nihongo wa jyouzu desu ne?

That post on Linux+ cracked me man! they really ask questions like that? I am worried about Linux+ mainly because if I am not very confident, it is difficult to the passmark in Linux+. BTW how many questions you need to get right to pass?

Cheers.

kimanyd

Nihon e itta koto ga arimasen. Jozu ja arimasen.

I've had about a year in college and listen to Japanesepod101.com when I can. I was planning on making a trip out there soon, but a divorce, move, broken car, etc. have left my funds a bit low. I'll get out there sooner or later though.

Sorry, I didn't make the connection between this thread and the telecomm research thread. I recognize you now

Well, if you need 675/900, that's only 75%, which isn't terrible. The questions weren't always bad; some were ridiculously straight-forward as well. Those tend to compensate for the really obscure ones. I wish I had better news for you, but it was one of, if not the least favorite exam I've ever taken. I'm not a big Linux user though. I've dabbled here and there and only studied for a relatively short amount of time. I'd imagine that you'd be in pretty good shape since you've done these two LPI exams.

m26k9

kimanyd wrote: »

Nihon e itta koto ga arimasen. Jozu ja arimasen.

I've had about a year in college and listen to Japanesepod101.com when I can. I was planning on making a trip out there soon, but a divorce, move, broken car, etc. have left my funds a bit low. I'll get out there sooner or later though.

Sorry, I didn't make the connection between this thread and the telecomm research thread. I recognize you now

Well, if you need 675/900, that's only 75%, which isn't terrible. The questions weren't always bad; some were ridiculously straight-forward as well. Those tend to compensate for the really obscure ones. I wish I had better news for you, but it was one of, if not the least favorite exam I've ever taken. I'm not a big Linux user though. I've dabbled here and there and only studied for a relatively short amount of time. I'd imagine that you'd be in pretty good shape since you've done these two LPI exams.

Thanks kimanyd. Hope you get to come here soon...
75% isn't that bad I guess then... I am hoping to take the exam before the month ends... but a $300 price tag has got me a bit nervous man... lets see how it goes..thanks man..

leo_ultra_leo

Wow, man you share same my point of view exactly!! fully agreed with you..