My Lab Experience – Part II

The Lab

The proctor pointed out a clock on the wall and proclaimed that to be the official lab time.  The clock on my PC was 9 minutes faster than that clock.    With that we were off and running.

I removed all of the plastic sleeves and created an L3 and L2 map.  To be honest, the L3 map in the lab is very complete.  As mentioned in the IE Mock Lab Workshop, you’ll still want to have your own version that you can mark up to your heart’s content.

I created a task tracking grid and then I read the lab from start to finish.  As I read each question I put a smiley face in the notes section of my task grid for each task that I knew how to finish.  I placed a question mark for tasks that seemed doable yet might need more clarification.  A frowny face was recorded for each task that I knew would be troublesome.  After reading through the lab I felt that I had a very good chance at passing it.  About 75% of the tasks had smiley faces and only 3 tasks bore the dread frowny face (I feel really silly typing “frowny face” right now).

By the time that I typed my first line of configuration nearly an hour had already passed.  This is something that I need to speed up.  This really should have been a 30 – 40 minute process.  I really could have used an extra 20 minutes at the end of the lab.

I worked through all of the switching tasks and half of the IGP tasks before lunch.  Lunch comes 3 hours into the lab in San Jose.  This threw me off a bit as I am used to trying to get through IGP redistribution before lunch.  Of course, it means that you have 5 hours on the other side of lunch but I was still thrown off.

I did not leave my seat during the first 3 hours.  I ended up asking only one (dumb) question of the proctor.  Even though I read the lab I really only read it to look for pitfalls and whether or not I knew how to configure the tasks.  I missed some basic information that lead to me asking one dumb question and almost lead to another stupid one (not to mention some time lost doing some unnecessary troubleshooting). 

Lab Tip: Read your lab carefully (but quickly).  There may be information in the lab that is presented well after when you need to use it.

Lab Tip: Use your lunch break to your advantage.  I configured right up until the lab break (I wrote my configs right before lunch).  I should have reread a couple of tasks that I had tagged with question marks and used the lunch time to think about them.

Lunch

We lined up at the door and marched across the campus to the cafeteria.  You are given a $10 voucher for lunch.  This reminded me of the Brian Dennis joke about the lab being “a $1390 rack rental with a $10 lunch voucher”.  I was absolutely not hungry.  I grabbed some watermelon juice and some salad.  Neither were very good but I was too worried about how far along I was in the lab to taste anything. 

As we sat (mostly speechless) at the table we noticed that one of the candidates was missing.  You guessed it, Mr. Handshake was not among us.  The proctor had to get up and hunt him down again.

You get 30 minutes for lunch along with 10 minutes for the march to the cafeteria and back.

The Proctors

I should say the proctor.  I don’t know if there was another proctor in the lab (I think that there was but he was near the voice candidates) as I only went to one proctor.  I probably ended up asking about a half dozen questions.  The proctor was very cool and I got the sense that he was helping out as much as he could.  There was one line in a task that I just couldn’t make sense out of and I asked him about it until he finally told me that I had all of the information that I needed.

The Final Lap

I sat down and started back up with a pronounced sense of urgency.  I was the last few IGP tasks that absolutely sank me.  I had two tasks that I could not figure out what the hell the task required.  I had two other tasks that I could complete most of the task but not one sub task of each task.

By the time I got done with IGP I was down to just over 3 hours remaining.  I had to finally eat 6 points and move on.  That was the lowest moment of the exam for me.  I got full reachability, but I knew that I had missed at least 6 points and possibly 12 points.  Plus my damned “frowny faces” were still ahead of me.

I decided that I was not going to pass at that point.  I was so disheartened that I even thought that I would never do the lab again.  I had prepared like hell for a year straight and I tripped up on a couple of stupid questions.  I decided to just plow through the rest of the test because it was a better choice than crying. 

So with a bemused disposition I carried on.  Somehow I managed to finish with about an hour left.  I was still convinced that I had failed the lab until I took a look at the points that I either skipped or had not finished because I needed more clarification.  I added those points up and they totaled 25 points.  Hope made an unexpected return to the party.  I had an hour left and I needed to get at least 6 points to have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing the lab. 

I hit the documentation and managed to knock out all but 3 tasks.  One was a task that I couldn’t get my head around and was obviously going to take too long to configure even if I could figure it out.  The one that bothered me the most was the 3 points that I lost due to a QoS feature that I couldn’t remember and didn’t know the QoS documentation well enough to find it.  Colossal brainfart.  I can’t remember the other task.  I would make a really bad braindumper.

So basically I had about 15 minutes left and was looking at 85 points (9 points lost for the uncompleted tasks and 6 points lost for the IGP tasks).  I could either make another stab at the IGP tasks and possibly screw up a end-to-end reachability or I could try to mine the documentation for at least one of the uncompleted tasks – or – I could review at least part of the lab.  I chose the third option and found one boneheaded mistake (really boneheaded since I had already “fixed” the issue once).

With the few minutes remaining I stripped out all of the configuration that I added like “logg sync” and “no ip domain-lookup” plus my ping macros on my switches.

At 5:10 pm the proctor called the lab and we were free to wander out of the building.  I grabbed my $1400 Diet Mt Dew and walked out.  There were a few candidates gathered outside.  Only one thought that they had passed.  The rest echoed my “I’ll be back” comment.

You know the rest of the story.  I did go take another look at my score report and I was probably closer to passing than I thought.  I didn’t memorize the points for each section so I can’t be sure of my final score.  I guess that I can take solace in the fact that there were no sections where I scored 0%.  I scored high in switching.  I had a mid-range score in IGP.  The rest of the sections ranged from 25% to 75% with the exception of the 100% in Security (my weakest section).  I obviously could have benefited from time to review the full lab as I missed a some points in sections which I was confident that I had got all of the points.

Post Mortem

So what do I feel were my reasons for failure:

1) Speed.  This was minor because my “speed” suffered from my wasting time on the IGP tasks that I eventually had to forfeit the points.  I could have sped up the initial lab read and diagram making.

2) Question interpretation.  This was the big one.  A majority of the questions would not come out and tell you what technology to use, but would rather use a description of that technology.  Sometimes these descriptions were either foreign to me or they concentrated on a minor feature of said technology.  This threw me.  Sometimes I could mine the documentation using some of the keywords to figure out what the technology was, but there were a couple of descriptions that just did not make sense to me.

3) The ability to move on.  I was actually pretty good at this.  I have this problem with skipping tasks if I have some idea how to complete them (which was 95% of this lab).  I actually skipped some tasks, but I wasted way too much time on those IGP tasks.  I convinced myself that I could not pass the lab without getting those points.  The truth is that I should have moved on much earlier.  I could have probably picked up the 3 extra points in QoS with more time and possibly figured out those IGP tasks.

4) Familiarity with the documentation.  I am pretty familiar with the documentation for the tasks that I have trouble with.  I’ve always been pretty good at QoS so I did not really use that section too often.  This bit me in the ass when I brainfarted on the QoS issue.

5) Utilizing the proctor.  This relates to the question interpretation issue.  It’s also a psychological issue – especially after my first question was a dumb one.  I didn’t want to come off as stupid or to keep bugging the proctor until he tired of me.  I should have continued to ask questions to try to clarify the tasks.  My goal should be to pass the test, not to impress the proctor.

My Lab Experience – Part I

A couple of things first:

Anyone who feels less confident about their chances of passing the lab based on my failure – don’t.  The lab that I took was eminently passable.  I almost wish that I had received a really tough lab as my ego would be a little less bruised.  The reason for failure lies completely with me. 

Which leads to my second caveat: I am not an authority.  Don’t feel that because I didn’t pass that means your chances are diminished.  If you’re using IE’s workbook then just know that my lab only had two technologies not present in the Volume II/III workbooks* – both of which were fairly easy to find in the documentation.  At the end of the day I’m not a Brian or Petr or Marvin or Jared or Scott or [insert favorite vendor instructor here] but rather just some dude on the Internet posting about my personal quest for the holy digits.  You should NOT let my failure affect your preparation strategy.  Again, the lab I received was passable and you may not trip on the same tasks that I did.

*I did not complete all of the labs Volume II labs.  I completed all of the labs except the ones with a difficulty rating of 10.  Also, my memory is not perfect so these technologies may be present in the IE labs.  My point is that there was very little in the way of “surprise features” on my lab.

Finally, I need to respect the NDA.  If you have any questions about the lab feel free to leave a comment with your question.  I will answer it to the best of my ability but if doing so would break the NDA then I will not be able to answer it. 

Anyhoo…here’s my lab experience.

The Night Before

You may want to read this part with your eyes closed.    My wife and I flew into SFO on Monday and proceeded to have a blast in the city.  Either the streets in Chinatown have gotten a lot steeper or I’m more out of shape than I realized.    On Wednesday we picked up a car and drove down to Monterey.  We were back in San Jose by 6 pm.  I had brought along a bunch of my IE labs and solution guides and read through a number of them for review.  By 9 pm I was exhausted.  I still had not reviewed the CCIE Routing and Switching Practice Labs so I decided that I would get up at 3 am and review until I left for the exam.  That would give me 6 hours of sleep and I really did not think that I would be able to sleep.  I slept like a baby.  A baby who dreams about IOS.  The hotel I stayed was ill-staffed (to say the least) and when I tried to call for a wake up call, I was promted to page out the front desk…at 8:30 pm!  Screw it, my wife set the (piece of crap) clock radio for 3 am.

3 am rolled around and I woke up to a barely perceptible blast of radio static.  I got up and took a shower.  While in the shower I remembered that I had set the alarm on my phone to go off at 3 am as well.  I quickly finished my shower in an attempt to stop that alarm from waking my wife.  I picked up my phone and looked at the time.  It was a few minutes past 1 am!  I looked at the clock radio and it read 2:15 am.  WTF?  My wife later told me that she set the alarm for 2 am instead of 3 am and that the clock must have been an hour ahead of local time.  Oh well, more time for study.

I read through the CCIE Routing and Switching Practice Labs as well as a number of my IE labs and notes.  At 5 am I crawled back into bed to nab another 1.5 hours of sleep.  I woke up again (still no problem sleeping) at 6:30 am and went through a few notes as well as reviewing the location (we had driven to the location the night before) and time of the lab.  At 7:45 we were on our way.

Lab Tip #1:  Bring your own alarm clock.

Lab Tip #2:  Don’t bother with any last minute review.  I gained absolutely nothing by doing this and lost some sleep time.  The sad thing is that I’m wired for shit like this.  I had gone a few days without any review and didn’t want to fail the lab and regret not doing “one last review”.  If you’re wired the same way as I am (I’ve done this from college on) then try to convince yourself that sleep is more important than any last minute review.

Lab Tip #3:  Drive to the testing location the night before the lab.  The hotel that I stayed at (Extended StayAmerica San Jose – Santa Clara) was located on Gold Street (basically Lafayette Street about the 237).  Lafayette drive passes BENEATH Tasman Drive so you need get off on Calle del Mundo and follow that street to Tasman Drive.  If we hadn’t noticed that the night before I would have been pooping myself on the morning of the exam. 

Quick Hotel Review

Extended StayAmerica San Jose – Santa Clara  is located about 2 miles from the testing center (right across from some Foundry Networks buildings).  It’s a walkable distance, but you really don’t want to worry about getting to the test center on time so you’ll probably want a car or hire a cab.  The hotel did not offer a shuttle to the Cisco campus.

The hotel was relatively cheap ($120 per night with taxes) and was serviceable.  It has a kitchenette and there is a Safeway nearby.  The hotel must be going through renovations.  The room we stayed in was clean but the hallways were pretty filthy.  I didn’t really care.  The only issue I had was that the hotel “upgraded” us to a double rather than a king.  I asked if the room was the same size and was told that it was.  I then asked how they considered the extra bed to be an “upgrade”?  No answer. 

Wireless Internet is available for $4.95 per stay.  That was the cheapest and most stable WiFiconnection I had on my entire trip.  That just tells you how expensive and crappy the WiFi experience was at the various other hotels and airports. 

I won’t recommend the place for your honeymoon but I felt that it was okay for a night or more before your lab.  I’ll probably stay there for my next attempt.

Arrival

I arrived at Building C around 8 am.  You’ll need to check in with the security guard and present a government issued ID (a driver’s license is fine) and then wait for the proctor to come down around 8:15.  There is a notice on the door stating that the building access hours are 7:30 am - 5 pm so you probably do not want to arrive before 7:30 am.

There were about 10 candidates that day.  Everyone was on time.  Around 8:15 a proctor will come down and call out your name.  You’ll need to present your ID once again and the proctor will give you a name tag.  One of the candidates came forward when his name was called and offered his hand to the proctor.  This confused everyone as he was one of the last candidates called and should have seen that everyone else was showing their ID.  Eventually the confusion was cleared and we followed the proctor to the lab.  All along the way there were signs on the wall with “CCIE” on them so it would be very hard to get lost.

We arrived outside the lab and quickly found that one of the candidates was missing.  Somehow Mr. Handshake had separated himself from the group.  The proctor left us outside the lab and went back to get him.  This took about five minutes and needless to say the proctor was not happy and did not hide the fact.  Wonderful, this jackass had the proctor in a foul mood already.

We were told to turn off our cellphones and place them and any bags on a bench.  We were then split into two groups: voice candidates and non-voice candidates.  At that point the second proctor arrived (I’m horrible with names – I think that the first proctor’s name was Tom but I completely forgot the second guy’s name).  You will be assigned a station (the station number will be important for your exam).  The proctor asked how many first-timers there were and me and two other guys raised our hands.  The proctor went through a very quick tutorial on the workstation.  The guys who had been to the lab before took this opportunity to start their labs while this was happening.

The Lab Station

The exam room is large.  There are stacks of equipment throughout the room and there is a constant buzz of fans.  It’s like being in a small data center without the ice cold air conditioning.  I wore a short-sleeved shirt with slacks and was comfortable [to be honest once you're locked into the lab it could be absolute zero with live rounds being fired at your head and you most likely would not notice].  A couple of the candidates showed up in tshirts and shorts so dress comfortably and don’t worry about any type of dress code. 

We were not allowed to bring any food or drinks into the lab.  I didn’t ask whether or not gum was considered food (I chewed gum the entire time).  There is a break room around the corner that has a cooler stocked with sodas (Diet Mt Dew was in full effect!) and juices as well as coffee and tea.  The men’s restroom was direct across the hallway from the lab.  If you need to use the restroom or the break room you need to use an access card.  There is only one access card.  Only one candidate could leave the room at a time.  Well, you could leave the room without the card but you would not be able to get back in.   

Each station had a container with a number of highlighters, markers, and pens.  I didn’t bring anything into the lab except my wallet and a pair of ear plugs.  I don’t remember hearing whether or not you are allowed to bring in any pens/markers/highlighters of your own and no one asked about it.  The writing implements at my station seemed to be a collection of hotel pens, decent highlighters (pink, yellow, and blue) as well as some colored pencils.  Nothing outstanding, but all usable.

You are given a single sheet of paper.  You can ask for one additional sheet at a time, but you need to present your paper to the proctor when doing so.  I only used one sheet as it was huge.  It was probably 16 inches by 8 inches.  I folded it in half and used one quadrant each for my L3 drawing, L2 drawing, and task tracking grid.  This left a full quadrant for notes.  You are told not to rip off pieces of the paper (your sheet must be intact).  I did not ask if you could tear the sheet in half – which I wanted to do – but the few times that I needed to unfold/flip the paper presented no problems.

Your desktop will be set up with individual shortcuts for telnetting to each device.  There is also a shortcut for a terminal server if you want to go that route (I did).  You’ll have access to Notepad and the Windows calculator.

A quick note about the Windows calculator.  For some reason mine was set to hexadecimal view.  I couldn’t figure out whether I should use qword, dword, word, or byte.    I didn’t realize until after the lab that I should have changed the view to decimal mode.  I don’t know if the hexadecimal setting was just the previous candidate being a douche-bag or if it was the proctors making the lab a bit more challenging, but let my embarrassing calculator skills be a warning. 

Windows Calculator in Decimal Mode

 

Windows Calculator Settings for Decimal Mode

 

Your lab binder will be on your station.  The lab pages are enclosed in clear plastic sleeves.  You are allowed to remove the plastic sleeves but you are NOT allowed to remove the lab papers nor to mark the papers or plastic sleeves in any manner.  The proctors are VERY serious about this.

Remember that the following points pertain to my station in the San Jose location on 02 October, 2008.  I have heard that each location (and perhaps each station) may be different. 

1) You are allowed to save configurations to the desktop with Notepad.  I asked about this and used this method to save out my TCL scripts.

2) I could not open any PDFs (well I could, but it would open in Notepad and good luck reading that mess).  I tried saving a PDF to the desktop and then opening it, but I could not even save the PDF.  A quick look at the installed programs showed that Adobe Reader was NOT installed on my machine.

3) The version of SecureCRT was older and did not support tabs.  I am a Tera Term Pro baby so I was a little worried about cut and paste features in SecureCRT.  It was not an issue.  Any highlighted text was copied to the clipboard and pasted with a right-click.  The experience was very similar to using the Windows CMD window with QuickEdit and Insert modes selected.  The only change that I made was to change the background and text colors.

4) The browser is version 6 of Internet Explorer.  There was no tab functionality.

I did not ask if you could save configurations to flash.  The proctors never brought it up and it was not addressed in the lab.  I had no need to do so, but I have heard rumors that you can do this as well as rumors that this will cause you to fail the lab.