I sat my second lab attempt on Tuesday the 3rd December and I did not pass. This hurt me emotionally as I had continued my constant study since my first attempt. My knowledge has definitely improved since my first attempt. I feel it is more complete and I have a good understanding of all the concepts. I worked hard on troubleshooting in the last couple of weeks and I felt pretty “invincible”. I did all the TS graded labs and the BC tickets and I smashed them all in good time allowing me to go back and verify. When I factor in the additional 4 months, how good I felt about my knowledge and my recent results in TS I felt I was going to pass or be pretty close. The truth is I did no better in my second attempt and this was hard to take. The issue with the INE topology is that I know my way around it, where the protocol boundaries are etc so I don’t “fear” it like the real TS section.
I did not sleep well before my lab and this probably did not help. I think I managed 3 hours at most. I have not stayed in London for a long time and it won’t be anytime soon if I have any choice on this. There were sirens going off every 20 or 30 minutes, drunks smashing pipes against scaffolding, car horns etc. Not good at all. I visited Cisco the day before to check the time and was told to arrive around 8.30 as they don’t go in to the exam until 9.00. I arrived at 8.37 and they had already started and so my stress began. The first ticket was very simple as it was literally two devices directly connected that could not communicate but I could not solve it which increased my stress levels further. I can see now that I am not managing the exam environment very well. I think I am letting myself get stressed which is stopping my brain functioning correctly and I am unable to perform.
In TS my strategy has always been to skip the 3 point tickets until I had enough 2 point tickets and to move on if I wasn’t getting anywhere with the fault. I stuck to this but I simply did not solve anywhere near the amount of tickets I was expecting to.
The interface was horrible. I don’t remember any real problems in Brussels but in the mobile lab you could not see the whole topology on the screen so you had to constantly scroll around to see different parts of the topology and to see the menu options for different diagrams etc. All the terminal sessions were“Always on Top” so if you were working on 5 or 6 devices and needed to look back at the diagram you had to minimize all the sessions first. It was horrible and I am quite disappointed in that respect. The focused diagrams included in the tickets did not help as generally the faults spanned a good number of devices and they were too small to be off any use in probably 50% of the tickets.
I had already decided that if I did not pass TS I would treat the config section the same and try and score as high as possible. In my previous attempt I simply decided to have a go at everything and not skip any question. I did skip maybe 3 questions but the rest I had completed to the best and done partial verification. I probably spent the last hour doing some verification and looking at one of the questions I had skipped as I felt I could do it. I should have used all of the last hour for verification.
And now for the worst part, I got the same lab as I had in Brussels. This was a horrible config lab and without saying too much I was disappointed when I first saw it as it did not focus on the main topics. Sure everything tested was on the blueprint but that is as much as I can say.
I did not learn from the first lab but I will be sure to put that right in case I get the exam for a third time. So here are my results:
Troubleshooting, July 41%, December 45%
Layer 2 - July 62%, December 48%
Layer 3 - July 68%, December 44%
Mcast - July 0%, December 50%
Advanced Services – July 25%, December 70%
Optimise the Network – July 50%, December 100%
The TS score is awful but worse is the Layer 2 and Layer 3 scores. Armed with a better understanding I have actually done worse. So either I misinterpreted the question or I made silly mistakes. I do remember running through some questions on Layer 3 I had struggled with after my first attempt so I would not get caught out again so to score worse on those sections is really baffling!
I spoke to my boss after the attempt and I have been informed that they will not fund any more lab attempts. There is a possibility of negotiating Cisco Learning Credits when we buy equipment but we do not have any at present to use so I have a few things to consider.
1) 1) Walk away and forgot my dream of becoming a CCIE, I am a much better engineer for all the work but that is all – I am not ready to give up on my dream so this is not really an option
2) 2) Pay for a V4 attempt myself and hopefully we will have credits for a V5 attempt if required
3) 3) Take a break from study and prepare for V5 using CLC for my lab attempts
4) 4) Find a new job with a company who need CCIE’s and are willing to fund the development rather than recruit ready made
I am going to rule out 1) and 4) for now which leaves 2) and 3). The difficulty is can I improve enough to pass V4? My previous attempts were not very good (borderline embarrassing) and I would have to pay for this myself. V5 does not scare me. I have done a large DMVPN project and I was a CCSP for around 8 years or so before Cisco changed the track to CCNP-Security. In fact it would be nice to spend all my hours on V15 code and more relevant technologies.
At the moment I am having a break which is why I haven’t been on the forums. I felt I was a bit snow blind with the constant study that has pretty much been full on for the last 7 months or so (every night and every other weekend) with my studies starting around 3 years ago. I need to make a decision soon as I have a provisional date booked towards the end of March.
I want to thank everyone for their help and support with my studies so far and I will be back in January or sooner if I get the itch. I just felt a bit “sick” of everything CCIE after my last attempt.
Either way, v4 or v5, I need to prepare better for the exam mentally. I spend too much time on the technologies that I forget to think about how I handle the pressure cooker that is the Lab. I feel stressed and unable to move like a rabbit caught in the headlights of Cisco’s huge SUV. I will experiment with sleeping tablets before my next attempt as I think a good night’s sleep will definitely improve my performance. I will continue to work on my knowledge and my troubleshooting as I still need to improve but I must not forget to prepare mentally as I have not given this much thought before now.
Nick (Still a decent CCNP)
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