George, Way to go. I guess we were good partners for each other at NMC-1! Congratulations.
Chuck Church CCIE #8776, MCNE, MCSE Sr. Network Engineer Magnacom Technologies 140 N. Rt. 303 Valley Cottage, NY 10989 845-267-4000 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of George Zhang Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 5:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CCIE#8903 All, The title says it all. I took my first attempt at the CCIE lab test yesterday (March 5) in Halifax and received the "Congratulations on Passing the CCIE Lab!" this morning. I was the only person taking the lab test in Halifax yesterday. I was told that there was another person scheduled yesterday but did not show up. My test started about 8:15 AM in the morning. We broke for lunch at about 12:20PM. By then, I only finished all the IGP stuff and felt some pressure on time. But I have already reviewed rest of the test and knew that I could go through the rest quickly. After the 15 min lunch break, I worked through rest of the test very quickly. By about 3:00 PM, I finished every thing except one small requirement that I had no clue how to do it. I decided to skip that item. Then, I started reviewing and checking my config. Along the way of reviewing/checking, I spotted and fixed a few issues. Just about the time I finished reviewing every thing, the proctor walked in and told me that it' time. I looked at the watch. It was 4:30 PM. My proctor was Steve. Steve is a great proctor. He answered quite a few of my questions and cleared my mis-understanding and confusion about the requirements of the test. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all people who helped me to achieve my goal. First, I would like to thank my wife for her support and understanding. Without her support, there is no way I could achieve my goal. Next, I will give my thanks to Bruce, Val, and Fred of NetMasterClass. As I said earlier, the NMC1 class is the most important part of my final preparation. Thanks to Katie Wong of Cisco who scheduled me to access the ASET racks. Thats my primary resource for hands-on practices for the past couple of months. Thanks to Eric Fairfield for lending me a few routers when I was in Wisconsin. Also thanks to those that I've either studied with or have helped me one way or another. Thanks also to Paul for putting this great list together. As far as my story, I started my quest of the Cisco certifications a little over two and half years ago. I got my CCNA and CCNP in the first year. Three months later, I passed the CCIE written test. I wanted to take the lab a year ago. However, due to work and personal reasons, I did not get time to do it until now. Last year, I was too busy to do much study. At work, as a consultant, I was billing at least 40 hours/week for the whole year. At home, my second child was born in February, my wife finished school in July, and we moved to New Jersey from Wisconsin in September. In October of last year, I foresaw a window of opportunity for me to take the lab test early this year. Then, I lobbed my manager to let me go to the ECP1 class. By the time my manager approved my training request, I found that Mentor Technologies went belly up. However, I learned that Bruce and Val founded a new company called NetMasterClass, LLC (www.netmasterclass.net) and offering the NMC1 and NMC2 classes. I registered and took the NMC1 class by the end January. By the end of last year, the project I worked on finished. So since the beginning of this year I got a lot of time to study. For the past couple of months, I have studied 8-10 hours every day. As far as how I prepared, I have read most of the books (Doyle I & II, Caslow, Halabi, Tam-Nam-Kee, Solie, Satterlee, etc.) recommended by people on this list. Among this long list of books, the only one I dont like is Solies book because there are too many errors in the book. There are a few topics I was more confused after reading the book. I dont have a home lab. So my primary resource for hands-on practice is remote labs such as Mentor Technologies vlabs (not available any more), Cisco ASET lab. Because I dont have a home lab, my preparation included more reading than hands-on practice. That actually worked out very well for me. Above all, the most important part of my preparation is the NMC1 class taught by Bruce, Val and Fred. IF I HAD NOT TAKEN THE NMC1 CLASS, IT PROBABLY WOULD HAVE TAKEN ME ONE OR TWO MORE ATTEMPTS BEFORE I COULD GET MY NUMBER. There are a lot of things that just cannot be learned from reading books or practicing. So the NMC1 class helped me to fill in that gap very well. It also helped me to access my strength and weakness. So I know what to study on the last few weeks. I strongly recommend taking the NMC1 class a few weeks before your lab date. Thanks again. George Zhang CCIE#8903, CCNA, CCNP Sr. Network Architect Compuware Corpration 1 Meadowlands Plaza, Suite 1050 East Rutherford, NJ 07073 732-494-0288 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. _________________________________________________________________ Commercial lab list: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/commercial.html Please discuss commercial lab solutions on this list. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=37511&t=37511 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]