I have just passed my CCIE lab exam in the first attempt, and I am quite disappointed about the exam because it is much easier than I expected. I spent 6 months for the written exam and another six months for the Lab exam. I didn't study any online class, don't try any Mocklab, so before I took the exam, I am quite scared about the exam, this is because many guys here said that the exam is difficult, and getting CCIE is the greatest achivement that they can have. It took me 5 hours to solve the exam, with just simple questions and if you practice Workbook 2 or 3, you will see that the lab exam is easier. I really don't know why many guys have to take the exam for 3 or 4 times to pass. It just means that they don't know where they are, don't have a good planning for the exam, or maybe they are too scared?
Here is my experience:
CCIE is not about the exam, it is about the time your prepare for the exam, it is a very good time for you to study the technologies. Many guys just takes a few months to study the written exam, because they think it is too easier? and when they come to the lab, they failed. With me, even when I am practicing for the Lab, I am still reading the technologies. So where we can study the technologies? It is the DoCD. If you don't understand a topic in the DoCD, go to find a book, ebook, or whatever documents, read it and try to understand it. What happened if you are doing a practice lab, and you don't know a question, a technology? you can look into the answer, but after that you have to find a book or what ever document to read and understand it. Try to solve the question yourselves. Then later time, when you have the similar question, you will know how to answer.
Try do solve the questions in the practice lab by your own solutions, don't just look into the answer book and repeat it. When I was prepering for the lab exam, I did InternetworkExpert workbook1,2,3 then moved to IP__EXpert, then Soup to the Nut. these are all the Lab I can get from this forum, I don't have that much money to study in online class. With me InternetworkExpert Workbooks are brilliant, the best workbooks that you can have. IP__Expert is a waste of time. I hate that workbooks very much. The way they draw the network diagrams are studpid so I always have to draw it again. Soup to the Nut is good. When I praticed InternetworkExpert, each day I did a lab so I can take you 25 to 30 days to finish Workbook 2 and 3. One month before the exam, I started doing internetworkExpert workbooks 2 and 3 again for the second time. This gave me the excitement, When you do the second round, it is quite easy, this is the time your need to control the time, and develop you own strategy when doing the real lab exam. In the last week before the exam, I just went swimming and drinking with my friend, don't have to worry to much about the exam.
everybody said that to pass you have to practice, practice, and practice more, this is just a half of the truth. With me, reading, reading, and reading is also very important. If you don't know the technologies well, when you come up with a different type of question, you will not know how to do it. I read the DoCD too times, I read IOS 12.3 and IOS 12.4 topics. So I know exactly what the technologies are. When doing the exam, I don't have to open the DoCD to find the answer. This will save you a lot of times.
You will also need a good plan for your study. For example, you can plan to study this technologies in two days, after that you move to other topic. This is a short plan, you can have a plan for a month, two months, think about what will you do in that time, study what you think that you do not understand, etc. Then you also need a plan when doing the lab exam. Think about what will you do in the lab. What will you do first, if you don't know how to answer a question what will you do. You will leave it to the end of the lab or open DoCD to find the answer? You need to prepare for that. You also need to have confident, try to talk to the Proctor, other candidates, don't think about the exam too much, this will give you more comfortable, less stress, and enjoy the exam. In my exam, all other candidates look scary, they didn't talk to each other and the Proctor, some fo them were taking the exam for second time. If you are not confident, and worry too much, you will fail immediately. So just relax and enjoy the exam.
Don't listen for some guys, they said that you have to learn to type the keyboard very fast, this is studpid. When I took the exam, when the protoc said that we can start the exam, I could here the sound of the keyboards. I didn't know what the hell they were doing, they typed the keyboard very fast, and you know what, after 30 seconds, a guy logged himself out of the device and he cannot login again. So the protor had to make a phone call to America to help him.
During the time you are doing the exam, there will be some security questions that will break your network. You must be very carefully when doing these type of question. You may need to reload the router, not only 1 or 2 times, to make sure that everything is working correctly. If you can't do that question, leave it, don't try to solve that question, because you don't need 100% to pass CCIE, only 80%, and when you pass, they will not tell you how many percent you get, they just say that you pass it.
The most important for me is understand the technologies, preparing for the exam will give you the chance to build up your knowledgement. The exam itself is easy, so don't worry about it too much, just enjoy the time you are studying.
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