TSHOOT exam tips needed

MrXpert

I should be doing my Switch exam soon but want to get ahead a bit and find out something about the TSHOOT exam.Is the exam purely sim based? i.e. one big simulation with lots of things broken that need fixing? or lots of small simulations? is much study needed for it like switch and routing ? or it like the others where you have a mix of multiple choice, testlets, simlets?
would anyone recommend Boson's TSHOOT practice exam?

Happy New Year!

instant000

1. I've heard that these three videos are awesome for giving you an idea of what the lab is like:

TSHOOT Bull's Eye Strategy #1 - YouTube

TSHOOT Bull's Eye Strategy #2 - YouTube

TSHOOT Bull's Eye Strategy #3 - YouTube

2. I would not say that a lot of study should be needed for it, it should be the easiest of the three, since it's based on what you have already covered.

3. I would not recommend a TSHOOT practice exam, and after you view these three videos above, you'll know what I mean by that.

4. As far as labbing, you could just go for the Cisco TSHOOT lab manual, which is publicly available, the link is found within this thread:

http://www.techexams.net/forums/ccnp/71180-ccnp-route-lab-manual-cisco-academy.html

Scales

Here is a demo of the TSHOOT exam from cisco. It will give you an idea of what the exam is like
TSHOOT Demo Item

And also the actual exam topology provided by Cisco (i.e. NOT **** material)
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadBody/6741-102-1-23100/TSHOOT%20Exam%20Topology.pdf

taken from:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-6738

that should be a big help (was for me)

MrXpert

Thank you all for your help. I don't know how you reacted when you first saw the topology and what was required but I felt excited and nervous at the same time. The topology does look daunting at first glance but I think I need to get used to it and know where the devices are mentally and just make sure I remain calm and take things logically. I think for me anyway it is very easy to sometimes over think problems and forget some basic steps first.

I can't wait to do the real exam.:) Getting the CCNP would be such a wonderful personal achievement for me

f0rgiv3n

For TShoot there's a few topics it discusses and hits you with before the sims. So you'll want to briefly maybe glance over a tshoot book.

Those Tshoot bullseye videos are great for strategy when taking the exam. I used Bosom's Tshoot exam and I feel like it helped me a good amount. When I took it, I had already taken Route & Switch. With the knowledge from those and then using Bosom's Tshoot exam, and finally Cisco's topology they provide... I was able to pass it with 100% . Good luck!!

7of9

Keep in mind that you won't have all the commands you're used to available. That threw me when I attempted TSHOOT. Even worse, if you watch the CBT Nugget videos for it, they go into all kinds of nice commands and shortcuts...which won't be available to you in the exam. You'll likely have to spend more time simply with "show run" and comparing configs.

Also, being very familiar with the lab topology ahead of time will be a big help. There are no secrets and it's freely published by Cisco, so it's good to get very familiar with it so that you are hunting for where something is routed from, etc.

Another good tip is that you can go back to tickets. Often, if you get stuck, it's easy to pound your head on one thing and eat up time. As long as you haven't closed the ticket yet, you can skip ahead and come back, which might help give you momentum and come back to the problem with a clearer head.

Good luck!

bermovick

7of9 wrote: »

Often, if you get stuck, it's easy to pound your head on one thing and eat up time. As long as you haven't closed the ticket yet, you can skip ahead and come back, which might help give you momentum and come back to the problem with a clearer head.

That is SUPER important. I think I ate up about an hour on question 9 before I moved on to 10. Working on 10 made me think in different directions so when I moved back to 9 I almost immediately found the problem.

MrXpert

That is a really nice thing you can go back to tickets provided you still left them open. It seems a far cry from the previous exams where you could only move forward. But why didn't Cisco allow candidates to configure stuff to fix problems rather than relying on show commands?

I purchased the Boson ex sim max tshoot exams as they are on offer at the moment. I scored 586 on exam A which is well below the pass mark but I am fairly pleased as I still haven't finished studying for switch yet. I just thought i'd try my luck at TSHOOT as my curiosity got the better of me.:) Took me 135 minutes to finish it.The topology is nice but it is different to the real thing.

In Exam A there were 9 questions in total but the last one had 12 trouble tickets within it. I skipped 5 multiple choice questions from the non sim range because I have yet to study things like logging console levels or whatever they were talking about. I hope this information helps anyone considering buying the practice exam from Boson.

mattau

the boson tests are great, I used them for switch and tshoot. Definitely contribute my passes to those as they are very realistic and offer "exam practice" with the feeling of pressure as there is a clock ticking

I wouldnt expect to pass exam A first go as its the first one you will do, so you will more than likely take a while to get into the swing of it and like any form of study, there will be things you dont recall exactly, but if you pass all the other exams then you're set.


The tshoot topology is very daunting at first, took me a while to get my head around it. Every day for a month I drew out the topology on paper until i knew it like the back of my hand. I knew every IP and portchannel number, svi etc :P probably way too excessive but at least I was prepared.

The great thing about the kevin wallace vids are that he gives you a very good over view of how to approach the exam, how to review all the potential problems that could occur and gets you thinking.

To practice for it I built the lab in dynamips and bridged it to my real switches. Made about 20 configs full of stuff ups then randomly named them and revisited them in a week or so, so I forgot what i did to stuff them up

I wouldnt bother with the tshoot SLM. you cant study for this exam without incorrect configs. Whilst you can get the configs for all the labs in that book its just a pain and wastes so much time trying to set up ur devices with that same config quickly due to the routers and switches being different models etc.

ps. the "configure replace" feature in cisco ios will be your best friend with tshoot lab study

pert

3 tips that I think will help most people
Study your IPv6 stuff again.
The configurations on the gear int he sims is NOT static, it changes from question to question. A lot of people get confused by this. I.E if Router 3 is using ACL 100 in Question 2, it might be using ACL 117 in Question 3, it might have a different IPs, etc.
Study troubleshooting methodology. In a nutshell i think the easiest thing to do is ping form source to destination until you find where it stops works. Then look at that break point, either the device before it breaks or after. Then you need to know your show commands to find stuff quickly. Then have a methodology of things to check, is the interface up/up? Is the IP and subnet mask correct? Is there a correct route? Is that route in the routing table? Is there an ACL blocking traffic? etc.

MrXpert

I awaken an old thread but does anyone know how many troubleshooting tickets I will be faced with?
Cisco's website states 35-40 questions and you get 135minutes to do it in but won't it be 2 hours like the others? 35-40 questions or is that 12 trouble tickets with 3 parts for each making it 36 questions?

nel

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

dppagc

Is there any way I can get configuration of the devices in the topology?

DPG

Cisco doesn't publish it for obvious reasons but it is very easy to re-create it yourself in a lab.