Calm before the broadcast storm

So, here I am in my last half hour, sitting and sipping strong coffee and panicking. My dreaded switch exam is in 25 minutes.

I've spent so many hours in the books and labs and I've worked on this stuff for years; even so, the talesof this exam have scared the life out of me.

My family life has hindered my study in the past few weeks and The exam date has kinda crept up on me. I think I've got the material down, however My grip on wireless and 6500 specific features is kinda loose and I'm in danger of slipping off that particular cliff.

Anyway, I shall finish my Danish, gulp the last of my caffeine fix and go outside for a nicotine fix, maybe 2. Then I'm ready

I'll report back later, wish me luck.

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Comments

networker050184

Good luck man.

down77

Chris,

Good luck, I know you will do well.

aordal

oh man I hope you pass! I've been studying for this exam for far too long and hearing that someone passes will give me some confidence

ITdude

Knock em dead!

mikej412

I hate when they put Bars next to testing centers -- then we sit here waiting to hear the result while they're celebrating..... (or drowning their sorrows).

Chris_

What a B*tch of an exam!

I came out of that really angry. Apparently, this exam has improved in recent months, if that's the case then i would have hated to have taken the first attempt.

where to begin.....

The switch exam subject matter is really practical and enjoyable, there aren't really any far out concepts or topics that are hard to digest, basically it's easy, and quite fun I had a great time in the lab with my phones and wireshark, working out the nuts and bolts behind everything. Perhaps that was why Cisco felt the need to turn the exam into a gauntlet of confusing questions full of ambiguity with answers written in such garbled english that you feel like you've stumbled into the twilight zone and start to get paranoid that every one else can understand this strange new language called ciscobabble.

I've got nothing against a difficult exam, they should be! Route for example, was very challenging - causing me to dig deep into my technical undertanding and knowledge to answer the questions; it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The switch exam has been made difficult by trick questions and word games that leave you hanging on to your sanity by a thread.

The worst offenders are the design and implementation questions, I am at a loss when asked to pick 4 things that I should do on an implementation, from a list of 6, especially when I would do all 6 and have done on my successful implementations in the real world!!

Closely followed by the security questions - if someone implemented security like the exam examples they'd have lolsec up there backsides quicker than HSRP in a flap.

That leads me to one of the brighter stars amongst the questions (it's fairly obvious that the question authors vary by topic) the High availability questions were clear in their requirements, had good exhibits while still ensuring that you had to know your stuff to answer them correctly.

I also found the Labs to be quite goood. I've heard some horror stories on here, but to be honest, all the bugs must have been fixed at last. The tasks were listed in a 'customer requirements' kind of way, which is good, engineers should be able to translate needs into configs - it can't all just be about knowing what code to type.But if Cisco want to test on this then maybe a review on the whiteboard and marker policy is needed; it's not really suited to writing out proposals to work from! I had my own problems with the labs though - on the first one I discoverd that the 'C' key on my keyboard didn't work, a bit of a pain if you want to Configure anything. Took 5 minutes for the Pearson guy to run around and find another one, which was frustrating - I used the time to get my head around what I needed to do.

On another lab question I made the ultimate mistake. I still had 1 task to complete and some verification steps when, and I still can't fathom how it happened, whilst my mouse was hovering near the next button I CLICKED IT! - completely absentmindedly. i could have killed myself there and then.

anyway, despite all that - I PASSED

835 scored. couldn't be happier because I never, ever want to sit that exam again.

Just TSHOOT to go in 2 weeks and then the NP is done.

and BTW Mike, there was no Bar outside the test centre for me, just a 2 hour drive

now about to crack open a bottle of red though

AD227529

Chris, congrats on the pass. I'm getting ready to start studying for the CCNP exam in about a month. I've heard the SWITCH exam is the toughest of the three. You should have TSHOOT in the bag now. Good luck on the exam!

ITdude

Congrats and enjoy the red! Interesting experience for you indeed! Oh, and don't forget the obscure Cisco command:

onfig t

Chris_

Lol, not sure what they'll make of my comments - full of the word unt

Javi437

Congrats on the pass, what material did you use for the exam. I just passed my CCNA and would like to start the CCNP track, would like to know if 2 3550 switches with 1 2924 is enough for the switch exam. Thanks

instant000

Congrats

mikej412

Congratulations!!

Maybe the problem with the exam is the guys and gals writing it did it in a bar -- during happy hour with dollar pitchers.

down77

If I was overseas I'd buy you a pint of your favorite frothy beverage. Congrats on the pass!

So in retrospect which exam did you like better... ROUTE or SWITCH. Everyone says TSHOOT is a boat load of fun and I'm looking forward to that one as well in about a month.

lrb

Chris_ wrote: »

The worst offenders are the design and implementation questions, I am at a loss when asked to pick 4 things that I should do on an implementation, from a list of 6, especially when I would do all 6 and have done on my successful implementations in the real world!!

I felt the same way about some of these questions. Nevertheless, nice score and congrats on the pass and best of luck on the TSHOOT

Will you be looking to do any of the CCIP exams after you get your CCNP? BGP/MPLS were by far the most interesting exams to study for IMO

Chris_

Javi437 wrote: »

Congrats on the pass, what material did you use for the exam. I just passed my CCNA and would like to start the CCNP track, would like to know if 2 3550 switches with 1 2924 is enough for the switch exam. Thanks

For this exam I used the Official cert Guide, CBT nuggets, and cisco video mentor series. I also had the pearson flash cards for Iphone, which were really good for when sat on the bus, or toilet!! sorry if that grosses anyone out I didn't use any practice tests other than the ones that came with the book, which were quite good. I couldn't afford the Boson tests this time round - wish I had, they really helped with the Route exam.

Labwise, I'm sure your 3550s will be fine, maybe get a 2950 or 2 instead of the 2924, not sure a 2924 will cut it. I used 1 3550, 1 3560 and 2 2950. I also had 2 7960 ip phones going back to a cme installation in GNS3. Used GNS3 to sim a WAN which had links to PRTG monitor, Kiwi Syslogger and radius running on a Windows 2003 VM. I also used wireshark a lot (as always) to analyse captures and see what was going on - especially on the voice port qos stuff, really good to confirm what cos markings were on the traffic at different points in the LAN.

Make sure you have an RJ45 crimp tool and heads to make all the crossovers you'll need! couldn't buy ready made, that would cost a fortune - also remember that a gig cross is different to a 10/100.

down77 wrote: »

If I was overseas I'd buy you a pint of your favorite frothy beverage. Congrats on the pass!

So in retrospect which exam did you like better... ROUTE or SWITCH. Everyone says TSHOOT is a boat load of fun and I'm looking forward to that one as well in about a month.

As I mentioned earlier, I definitley preferred Route, even though I'm probably more comfortable with the Switch material. Route was hard in teh way it should be - tough technical questions that test your knowledge. This was just BS wordy nonsense. Looking forward to TSHOOT - a bit of good old fashioned fault finding, can't wait.

lrb wrote: »

I felt the same way about some of these questions. Nevertheless, nice score and congrats on the pass and best of luck on the TSHOOT Will you be looking to do any of the CCIP exams after you get your CCNP? BGP/MPLS were by far the most interesting exams to study for IMO

After TSHOOT my next one is the JNCIA in August - work want me to do this. I was thinking of the CCIP next but I'm getting more and more drawn to the CCDA/CCDP. My company has it's own MPLS core network, running mainly on Juniper, so the CCIP may give me the knowledge to persuade my way into that team. Who knows, I want to do both anyway. I'll decide in september.