Not many people take a long exam, so preparations might be hard to think of other than studying. Here are some basics for people getting ready to take a long exam that covers preparations that you might have overlooked. Read the rest of this entry »
Steps to Take When Preparing for a 8 and 1/2 Hour Exam
On August - 19 - 20092 COMMENTS
Best Practices for Passing the Written CCIE Exam
On August - 14 - 2009ADD COMMENTS
Getting Cisco certification can be very important for people working with computers because it can mean advancing in the field. If you are planning on taking the test, you want to make sure you prepare for it, since it does cost a pretty penny to take.
The written exam to get Cisco certification is a long test that covers a wide assortment of possible questions. With over nine categories that you need to be well versed in, it can be hard to know where to start when you a preparing to take the exam. There will be a lot of reading materials, although depending on how long you have worked in your field you might have learned a lot just through experience. Still, you’ll need to do some serious studying to make sure you get a good score on the exam.
You’ll want to start with looking at the blueprints for the test. These blueprints can be found through the Cisco website and you can print them out to get an idea of what will be on the CCIE written test. Of course it seems like they left nothing off this long list of possible subjects, but keep in mind that absolutely anything relative to the exam can be included even if it isn’t on the blueprints. They are a good place to start to figure out what kind of reading you should be doing and what subjects you should brush up on if you aren’t familiar with them.i
Depending on what division of Cisco you are currently working for, you may have to do more studying than other groups. Don’t let the amount of studying for 100 questions get you down, because there is more to the CCIE than just the written part. By doing studying on every area you don’t know much about you will also be preparing yourself for the other portions of the exam, especially the lab part which plays a huge role in your overall test score.
Cisco actually makes a good portion of the reading materials that you will want to familiarize yourself with, so be sure to pick up some of their books. Of course they do publish a lot of books so you want to filter through what books you will actually need to study. The first part will be the general networking portion. No matter what area you are working for, chances are you have a good grasp on this portion. It just covers the basics that anyone working with computers as their profession should already know.
The rest of the questions will cover more specific topics, and this is where you want to look through and determine what you don’t know a lot about. There is lots of reading materials not only through Cisco Press books but also reading materials available online. You should take a look at the sample questions provided on the Cisco website for the written part of the CCIE exam so you get a feel for how the questions are asked.
At the very least, the questions are multiple choice so if you have a hard time figuring out what you should be studying, just study everything. As long as you are good at what you already do and are getting certification for a job you already have, chances are you’ll be able to pass the written CCIE exam.
Resources
To learn more about what resources you can use to study for the CCIE written exam, click here. There is much more information about the CCIE written exam and what it takes to get certified.
