Bridging the gap between CCIE RS and SP

About an hour after the lab, while still researching my OEQ answers the results arrived. By this time I already knew that I got one completely wrong because I did not have an idea what the abbreviation stood for and the second question I could only remember two of the required four answers. So it was game over in the first 1.5 questions. The rest of the lab went humorlessly without incident.

Three of the open ended questions I would rate fair and acceptable, but only if there were four of them. All three I encountered somewhere along the Cisco studies. Only one was related to lab preparation. The list of four of which I could only remember 2 of was way back for CCNP/IP and the RS/SP written. I have memorized these a few times, but four was just too much to remember from a year+ back. The very first question was just insane, I bet none of the proctors knew what it was or that it existed before adding it in the OEQ. I doubt Russ White or Narbik’s gran knows. Forget about 4 questions, there are only three possible questions of which all three are required to be answered correctly. They might be a short answer, an explanation or a list of answers.

Apparently the OEQ are not repeated. Not sure how sustainable that is but since the introduction of OEQ the proctors have much more time on their hands as they dont have to manually grade the lab after the script. What they used to do and do when the OEQ are passed was to check the questions the script has marked incorrect. Since there are multiple ways to do the same thing, the proctor could reverse the mark. They dont have to do this anymore, since the OEQ’s are a sure thing, which gives them more time to develop more OEQ’s and most importantly, more time to develop more labs. This also means the results in case of a fail arrive very soon, 30 minutes to 1 hour after the lab.

The lab portion went well. I managed to complete the lab with 1.5 hours left. During verification I found some errors, like referencing an acl 101 while I configured acl 107.  The time was much more manageable than the lab I had in Brussels where it was a complete race against time. There were about three questions where I had to look up in the documentation but could not find any related docs. During lunch I thought about the questions, figured it out and made it work after lunch. By the end of the lab all I thought about were the OEQ’s, the list of four of which I tried my best to come up with two more possible correct answers. I was unsure about one lab question but according to the lovely score report I got all the points for the section.

The proctor Mahesh, didnt seem too bad. After reading swapnedu’s feedback I had low expectations. In the brief before the lab I asked for a 5 minute warning which he reluctantly agreed to but executed well. This is quite important at Bangalore as the time on the workstation was incorrect so I was never sure what the correct time was or how much time was left. The lab started very late at 9:40. If I ever have to come here again, I will definitely not be there at 8am.

The venue was good, I think it is on par with Brussels, except that at Brussels its the only place to get a decent lunch. The screens were about 21″ lcd’s. The commute from the airport to the Unwind Islands where I ended up staying is about an hour. Apparently this could be worse. Traffic is hectic so try to avoid it if possible. Cisco is within 10minutes walking distance, but think about walking once you are here. The area might be considered rough around the edges if you are not from this part of the world and therefore not everybody’s cup of tea. If you dont walk, the hotel will arrange drop off. I opted for a drop off in the morning and a walk back.

Overall I dont think the OEQ’s, besides the one below the belt, were too bad. The mistake I made was to do labs and read that specific portion from the documentation, anticipating that the OEQ’s will test core topics and concepts. Next time I will be better prepared on a pure theory level. I still think OEQ is a good addition to the lab that just needs to be refined and executed/implemented better on SP. If the OEQ release the proctors to spend more time developing fresh content then I am all for it. This is still early days and I think the SP proctors are still finding their feet regarding OEQ. I am sure this will improve as they get more experienced at developing content that test candidates accurately.