Monday, June 1, 2009

CCIE R&S v4.0 – Your questions answered by Mauricio Gorito (from the CCIE Team at Cisco)

Cisco is running a nice “Ask the Expert” with Maurilio Gorito (you can access it through this link) regarding the new CCIE R&S Exam v4.0. This section will end in June 05, 2009.

The Last day to take the CCIE R&S Lab Exam v3.0 is October 17, 2009. The new exam format – v4.0 starts on October 18, 2009.

Personaly I really like the troubleshooting idea! Ok, I´m not a big fan of the OEQ, but troubleshooting seens really nice!

Here are the answers from Maurilio Gorito that I consider to be the most important (at least to me) so far:

Exam Format:

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1. Open Ended Questions: up to 30 minutes.

2. Troubleshooting: up to 2 hours.

3. Configuration: up to 5 1/2 hours. 
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The candidate will be graded only at the end of the day so even if the candidate fails in one of the sections he or she still going through all three sections.

There will be a big concern on integrity of the exams as all three sections are totally independent, per example the scenario or topology presented on the Troubleshooting section will be different from the configuration section.

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The v3.0 lab exam has about 36 to 40 questions.

The configuration section on v4.0 will have something around 25 to 30 questions on 5.5 hours.
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The Troubleshooting section will be independent from the Configuration section, i.e., it will be presented on a different scenario.

Once you finish the Troubleshooting you will move to the Configuration section that will be presented on a new scenario or topology.
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The Troubleshooting section will have a maximum of 2 hours. The candidate will be presented a series of questions or 'trouble tickets' for a given scenario or topology. The referred topology will pre-configured.

Based on the information provided such as IP addressing diagrams, IGP routing diagrams, and so on you will work to identify and fix the issues. You will be given points for working scenarios.
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1. The Open Ended Questions are 4 questions total and the candidate needs to get at least three out of four, and yes, usually 2 to 3 words are enough to answer them. During this section you can ask the proctor for clarification.

2. The total score of the CCIE lab exam still 100 points, now divided between the three sections. At this point I can't disclose the exact point allocation per section but you can expect the Configuration section to have between 25-30 questions and the Troubleshooting section to have between 10 to 15 trouble-tickets.

3. Regarding of MPLS we are planning to cover the basic configurations on label switching, VRFs and L3VPN. No advanced scenarios will be part of the exam.
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 OEQ:

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One good way to prepare for the Core Knowledge questions is along with your preparation to the lab exam where you will be applying the overall concepts during your hands-on practice studying.

During that section you will be asked concept questions about technologies that are listed on the lab exam blueprint so while you are preparing to take the lab exam you are implementing all those concepts and then you will be well prepared for that.

There is no memorization type of questions, like to memorize RFCs (as someone asked before) or specific protocol timers.

You may find questions the will have an output command and / or a topology for your interpretation, but not memorization questions such RFC numbers.

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The questions are suppose to be clear and direct so you should not need clarification, but if the candidate feel the need to clarify something on the question because per example English is not his or her first language proctors will help to clarify that.

Proctors will not go into technical discussions or possible directions on answering the questions, but still available to clarify the meaning of the question's wording.
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We do not look on language specifics. Although the questions are written in English during grading we do not look for correct grammar or perfect phrases, rather we look for key words related to the technology involved in the questions. Proctors are very careful on it as well they are available during the exam for any clarification if needed. Here is a link where you can find a sample for the Open Ended questions: http://ciscocert.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4667/kw/short%20answer%20questions%20sample/r_id/166

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The Open-Ended Questions are graded by the proctor, no by a script.
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The only available tool during the Core Knowledge section is the Notepad. No calculator is available.
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 Troubleshooting Section:

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A good way to prepare to the troubleshooting is when you are practicing on hands-on preparing to the lab exam try to change your scenarios, try different approaches when configuring routing protocols, different configuration on QoS, and so on. During your ‘experiments’ observe what happens, the changes on behaviors, and then record your finds. These will help you to understand how the technologies work at the same time how they behave during transitions, and then you will know how to deal when something is broken. Consider the following approach when analyzing a problem.

When analyzing a problem you should consider the following facts:

- Make sure you have a clear definition of the problem.

- Gather all the relevant facts and consider the likely possibilities.

- Create and implement an action plan and then observe the results.

- If the symptoms do not stop try another action plan and gather additional facts. If you try one thing and it doesn’t work you should take that configuration or feature off. In case you make the situation worse, always keep the basic and get back to a known position.

- If the symptoms do stop, document how you fixed the problem.
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The Troubleshooting section will have a certain number of trouble tickets and points allocated to the section. You will receive credits for the points you get. Your score on this section will show as, 30%, or 50%, or 80%, and so on.
You will need to get a minimum of 80% on each section of the exam to pass on the CCIE lab exam.
Yes, we are planning to post a sample Troubleshooting questions/trouble ticket for study reference.
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CCIE Lab Exam:

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The main changes on the new CCIE R&S v4.0 are:

1. The addition of MPLS/VPN, EIGRPv6 and the emphasis on troubleshooting.

2. The addition of a separated 2 hours troubleshooting section to the exam.

No topics were removed from the syllabus and those topics (aka blueprint) will be covered through 3 sections:

1. Open Ended Questions: up to 30 minutes.

2. Troubleshooting: up to 2 hours.

3. Configuration: up to 5 1/2 hours.

You can find more detailed information on the CCIE R&S v4.0 at
https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/docs/DOC-4605

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Yes, the v3.0 lab exam has about 36 to 40 questions.

The configuration section on v4.0 will have something around 25 to 30 questions on 5.5 hours.

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Performance Routing will not be a big topic, and may not appear in all exams.

IOS IPS it is also a topic that will not appear in all exams and it will not require to know the signatures but the basic configuration.

The same applies to the IOS Zone Based Firewall. This is new to the blueprint and it will be basic in the exam and may not appear in all exams.

No Radius server will be part of the CCIE R&S exam scenarios, and initially no SDM software will be installed on the ISR routers.
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1 comment:

http://indo-job-engineer.blogspot.com/ said...

can me link exchange to your blog? thanks

Job Engineer Indonesia
http://indo-job-engineer.blogspot.com/