PASSED SWITCH! - now on to TSHOOT

Hi guys,

I cleared the SWITCH exam this morning. Cisco exams always get my heart racing big time. I felt confident walking into the exam as I put hours and hours into studying. However, when I was answering the questions I suddenly lost confidence due to that stupid Cisco trivia - poorly written questions we all loathe. But, everything seemed to work, as others who have taken this exam recently reported.

I've been studying since the beginning of May, but took a two week vacation break and had to ramp up again afterward. I studied Monday through Friday 5pm-8pm and 5-7 hours on Saturdays and Sundays, with the odd weekend off.

I used the SWITCH Foundation Learning Guide, the OCG annexes (available online), the The Online CCNP Study Guide , The Cisco Learning Academy Lab Manual, whitepapers and documentation on Cisco.com and Boson ExSim Max for SWITCH.

The Boson Ex Sim Max exams are well worth the money. I found several weak areas that weren't covered as well as the could have been in the FLG and Boson link to Cisco documentation that explains all the nitty gritty. You need to know all of this stuff. Take the exams in simulation mode and then go each exam in study mode and read all of the explanations and also dive into the Cisco documentation they link to - it's all critical stuff.

Taking the evening off then I'll be studying for TSHOOT!

Cheers!

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Comments

/usr

Did you find SWITCH or ROUTE to be more difficult?

wave

/usr wrote: »

Did you find SWITCH or ROUTE to be more difficult?

I felt the ROUTE exam was more difficult. It's true what people say about the level of detail. ROUTE goes really in-depth and SWITCH covers a whole bunch of topics, it's more broad.

/usr

I deal with routing much less than switching...however that was one thing I did not like about SWITCH, how broad it was. We'll see how I fare on ROUTE I suppose.

/usr

Congrats on the pass by the way! You'll be CCNP in no time

mattau

congrats! that is fantastic news. Alot of hard hours put in there. Gives me some confidence that the exam is passable

Ivanjam

Congrats, coolz203! Good luck on TSHOOT!

Nate--IRL--

Congrats!

Nate

MrBrian

Congrats on your pass wave!! I'll be following along hopefully in the next few weeks.. Thanks for the heads up about Boson sim helpfulness for this. I have it, but haven't gone through it yet. Figure it will be my "final" prep, but with your words, I might jump into it now instead. Good luck on Tshoot! One step closer to your NP!

mattau

how do the boson sims work. Do you have to run windows to use it? like is it an actual standalone program you have to install or is it web based?

wave

mattau wrote: »

how do the boson sims work. Do you have to run windows to use it? like is it an actual standalone program you have to install or is it web based?

It's a standalone app you have to install. Not sure if they produce it for any other platforms. The sims in their tests are worthwhile doing before the live exam. The language in the Boson exams is much clearer than the real deal.

MrBrian

wave wrote: »

It's a standalone app you have to install. Not sure if they produce it for any other platforms. The sims in their tests are worthwhile doing before the live exam. The language in the Boson exams is much clearer than the real deal.

Question.. when you're talking about the boson sims are you referring to the cd-rom that comes with the SWITCH ocg?

Or are you actually referring to this..

642-813 SWITCH Practice Exam | Boson

Or can anyone else speak about this? 99$ is kind of steep since it seems I have enough study material. But then again if I can get an edge I'd consider it..

wave

MrBrian wrote: »

Question.. when you're talking about the boson sims are you referring to the cd-rom that comes with the SWITCH ocg?

Or are you actually referring to this..

642-813 SWITCH Practice Exam | Boson

Or can anyone else speak about this? 99$ is kind of steep since it seems I have enough study material. But then again if I can get an edge I'd consider it..

I'm talking about the latter. The Cisco Press books usually have a 20% discount offer in the back pages. I also got a discount code for liking them on Facebook.

In my view the ex sim max practice exams are gold, well worth the money. I usually allow two weeks prior to each exam to take the 3-4 practice tests in simulation mode and then go over them in study mode. The notes and reference material boson provide is great.

There is a big difference between ex sim max and the exams that cme with the book. The book exams are developed by Cisco press using the bosom engine and they suck.

MrBrian

wave wrote: »

I'm talking about the latter. The Cisco Press books usually have a 20% discount offer in the back pages. I also got a discount code for liking them on Facebook.

In my view the ex sim max practice exams are gold, well worth the money. I usually allow two weeks prior to each exam to take the 3-4 practice tests in simulation mode and then go over them in study mode. The notes and reference material boson provide is great.

There is a big difference between ex sim max and the exams that cme with the book. The book exams are developed by Cisco press using the bosom engine and they suck.

Gotcha, thanks for the info. Didn't know about the discounts offered.. Also, didn't know that the sims were different than the ones on the cd-rom, just thought that there was more. Might have to check it out. I feel strong on the topics right now, but want to leave no stone unturned

vinbuck

EX-SIM Max is the way to go....used them for every CCNP exam and they were invaluable.....especially for TSHOOT