David's CCIE: R+S Thread

Turgon

gorebrush wrote: »

I find booking it helps set a solid target date, and helps to keep motivation up.

How well it will work now remains to be seen

I suggest you blast it now. Get up to 100 reading hours as soon as you can and hit those practice exams.

gorebrush

Another 3 hours today.

Heading for another 3 hours tomorrow.

bertieb

Nice. I'd usually agree with the 'slowly slowly catchy monkey' process but get yer skates on and nail the written in June

gorebrush

Just started chapter 5, for another 3 hours tonight which kicks me over 50 hours total.

Nice.

PsychoFin

gorebrush wrote: »

Just started chapter 5, for another 3 hours tonight which kicks me over 50 hours total.

Nice.

Awesome to hit that 50 hour landmark already!

Cheers,
Fin

gorebrush

I'll be able to shimmy two hours in this evening before collecting the wife from work.

Weekend off ahead, need to do jobs tomorrow morning, but have been given promise that I can get on with work too.

Awesome.

I notice there's a nice load of bank holidays coming up... Prime CCIE time, as the wife is working a few of those days.

If I can get to 60 hours by the end of the weekend that'd be nice.

gorebrush

Didn't get anything done this evening.

Busy day in the office meant no concentration so decided to have an evening off and had a blast on Crysis: Warhead instead.

Hopefully pick it up tomorrow.

gorebrush

Wife was off work all weekend so jobs needed doing - so quality time spent.

However, I did manage to get 3 hours in yesterday.

I'm planning a 2 hour session tonight, then 9 hours spread over Wed, Thurs and Friday.

She's working all next weekend too, so time to clock in some more hours.

So far so good though, really getting into the swing of it now.

gorebrush

Got another hour in last night before the wife came home.

She is entertaining guests this evening with a party, so I don't have to be around - see if I can get another hour or two in tonight.

Then I can get a good 9-12 hours in between tomorrow and Friday, then plenty of time to get stuff in on the weekend.

70 hours by the end of the weekend? Possible.

gorebrush

Another 3 hours clocked tonight.

Chapter 6 complete (almost)

PsychoFin

Wow, you will have 100 hours of reading done in no time! KUTGW!

gorebrush

Managed another hour tonight, before absolute PC meltdown.

PC is needed around these parts, so have rebuilt and got it sorted.

gorebrush

Just finished up note taking of Chapter 7, EIGRP.

4 hours added to the counter for today.

Tomorrow, OSPF and another 4+ hour session.

gorebrush

Up to 67 hours now, squeaked in a few hours over the weekend and yesterday.

Turgon

gorebrush wrote: »

Up to 67 hours now, squeaked in a few hours over the weekend and yesterday.

Press on and cross the 100 asap. You are going to need May to get through the Odom and Boson practice tests properly. That's when you will work the mush you have in your head into something useful. It's a lot of work.

gorebrush

Working on it.

May will be out for tests, will be on honeymoon, however I will press on as planned and see what I can come up with.

Hoping for sessions tonight, tomorrow evening, then only an hour or two on friday/saturday as the wife is home. However Sunday/Monday she is at work, so I need to capitalise.

Next week, *nobody* is in the office due to everyone taking "those" 3 days off to take advantage of the 11 day break it yields. I don't think much in the way of BAU support will be needed next week, so some work on the dollar as a bonus is possible.

My goal is to get to 100 hours before the honeymoon, May 9th.

I think July will be more realistic for the written, but let's wait and see.

bertieb

Good progress by the looks of it - well done - and keep going

gorebrush

Hoping to make up to 70 hours today.

Then, this week at work, hopefully going to get some in on the dollar as nobody is in.

Even though study has been slow for the last few days, I am still on target for 100 hours reading before May 9th.

Turgon

gorebrush wrote: »

Hoping to make up to 70 hours today.

Then, this week at work, hopefully going to get some in on the dollar as nobody is in.

Even though study has been slow for the last few days, I am still on target for 100 hours reading before May 9th.

Keep up the reading. Take the pain. Only 33 hours to go.

gorebrush

Not been too well and had a lot of things happening at work - no studies lately. Disappointing, but will not let it get to me.

Another bank holiday to work on and then most of this week can be spent studying as Mrs gorebrush is at work most evenings.

Then honeymoon. 100 hours may not be possible, but a break would be nice, starting to feel burnt out after the last 18 months at work. Last job was tiring, still haven't had a holiday in that time.

Turgon

how are the studies going?

gorebrush

Came back from honeymoon yesterday.

Feeling very relaxed now, just what I needed. I will be picking up the studies ASAP and moving ahead with this.

gorebrush

Rescheduled written for 1st August 2011.

Recommencing studies this evening.

nel

Dave, its great to see your progress. youre coming a long way.

how are you finding the step up from the NP then?

Keep up the good work lad!

bertieb

nel wrote: »

Dave, its great to see your progress. youre coming a long way.

how are you finding the step up from the NP then?

Keep up the good work lad!

Couldn't agree more.

How's your CCNP coming along nel? Looking forward to reading your CCIE thread already

gorebrush

Yeah, it is about time I picked up where I left off and got on with it.

To be honest, it's "not bad" compared to NP. However, I am only reading the theory so far. I think that the practical side will be a *lot* more involved.

Turgon

gorebrush wrote: »

Rescheduled written for 1st August 2011.

Recommencing studies this evening.

Thats about right for a schedule I think. But you really need to attack the reading and practice tests now and right through June. If you dont get a lot done this month you wont recover in July. Four weeks is not enough time to get up for the written. Good luck!

nel

bertieb wrote: »

Couldn't agree more.

How's your CCNP coming along nel? Looking forward to reading your CCIE thread already

have been pretty much on hold. i decided to complete an Msc at university instead to get my academic education over with. its not ideal (or what i wanted to really do) but i knew it would be for the best long term.

i'll drop you an email

yuriz43

In terms of difficulty how would you guys say the Boson Practice Test ( Which comes with the Cisco Press CCIE Cert Guide) compares to the real written? I've found quite a few errors and ambiguous questions, but nothing extremely difficult.

Turgon

yuriz43 wrote: »

In terms of difficulty how would you guys say the Boson Practice Test ( Which comes with the Cisco Press CCIE Cert Guide) compares to the real written? I've found quite a few errors and ambiguous questions, but nothing extremely difficult.

The Boson that comes in Odom's book plus the Boson you can buy are a fair combination for your exam preparations as is reading Odom's chapters carefully. I found though that the actual test throws up situations that are not covered by way of example with these practice tests. I recall putting lots of time in with the practice tests until I was scoring well and then not passing the written. For me the practice tests have most value through repetition until you are left with a pile of questions you repeatedly get wrong. You should print off the solution explanations to those and study very carefully. The key for the written is understanding how the protocols actually work when shown a given config. So you may for example be required to say how packets will be loadbalanced (or not as the case may be) by OSPF across a network topology. Same with eigrp and metric calculations. Those are just two of 100 possible scenarios. Understand your multicast flags. Know QoS well. Know spanning-tree mechanics very well. Its one of those exams where you can study very hard but if your preparation isn't appropriate to what is being tested then you get slaughtered. It's one of the most dumped tests out there because the effort required to learn things to a deep understanding level is great. People can't be bothered.