Well just got back from taking my tshoot exam and are here to report i am now CCNP!
after listening to some feedback from the boards here i decided to book it at the earliest date i could, which was 2 weeks after i had taken my ROUTE exam. Received 100% in the troubleshooting section but must have got 1 question wrong in the MCQ, so i scored my highest mark to date.
Here is my advice, make of it what you wish.
1) Imo this exam is best left until last. Take it very soon after your 2nd NP exam as its a refresh of the route/switch configurations really.
2) I read the OCG. I thought the book was OK but it was very much an overview. Looking back i guess it was appropriate as the exam is an overview of the prior two. The thing that bugged me is that it threw some newbies in like multicast etc that were never mentioned in either route or switch.
3) Get used to the Exam Layout!!!! i cant stress this enough. Get used to working on a crappy small screen with multiple windows! its very frustrating imo.
The demo can be found at
TSHOOT Demo Item
4) Download and study the topologies from the cisco website!!! These are available to all before you go in the exam.
5) You cant take the topologies into the exam nor are you given a copy. I would recommend taking the first 10 minutes of it writing them down on a notepad that you are given. I asked for an extra board so i could draw all 3 topologies and additional notes. Some people see this as a waste of time but you get 2hrs+ for the exam and its plenty. This was a key move in my exam success i feel especially for quick reference.
6) if you arent sure on a question simply abort, move on and come back later. As the demo states, once you complete the ticket you CANNOT go back to it!
7) i would highly recommend watching kevin wallaces "abort" approach. it helped in a few questions for me.
TSHOOT Bull's Eye Strategy #3 - YouTube
keep a close eye on the SMALL details! dont overlook and just assume stuff, simply confirm the IP your pinging for example.
9) remember only some commands are supported, not all, so dont flap and find an alternative. It usually means it isnt relevant in the scenario. Remember show run is your friend
. See point 7 on how to compare configs between tickets.
10) Try not to guess things as if you choose the wrong source for the problem then you will get the subsequent questions wrong in the ticket too and it will have a domino effect on your score.
11) when troubleshooting i always confirmed client connectivity first using ipconfig. Once confirmed i then proceeded to ping the border router to verify connectivity. If there were issues in between then i would zone down by pinging each hop. If not i would investigate external links.
Studying the topology:
As cisco give you the topology a quick study of it shows what problems you may run into so i devised a plan in what to look for straight from the topologies provided and concentrated around these:
1) NAT
2) ipv4/ipv6 routing issues - ospf/eigrp/bgp/ripng
3) redistribution
4) HSRP
5) L2 issues - VLAN, etherchannel
6) DHCP
A few other things popped up but that would violate the NDA so cant mention them.
Hope that helps.
Thanks
Andrew
