CCIE 400-101 V5 Exam Blog

Let’s start with the “what” and “how” of preparing for an exam.

. "What" part is calm usually accounted for as V5 Cisco CCIE (400-101) curriculum. They broke down each section very detailed list of topics and approximate weight assigned. As expected, the layer 3 technologies is about half of the test (40% to be exact!).

. "How" is learning middle and half of the overall strategy is put together to "pass" the test successfully. I can not emphasize learning to look beyond what they already know, in essence, no "shortcuts" there. You must be prepared according to the published program or program review and then evaluate, pretty brutally honest, how can you be learning in and out - which is both the learning material and pass the exam. However, for as CCIE written exams, my advice would be to avoid the preparation especially around your strengths. You could say, really?!, How I can know if I'm ready. Well, that's where the questionnaire practice come into the picture, as they can help calibrate your learning progress and help you focus on your weaknesses rather quickly.

. A part of the formulation of strategies for the success of the review is to find a plan for all the formatting and rules of the game itself.


CCIE Exam format:

Well, the exam format is pretty much all over the web so hopefully I am not telling you something that you don’t already know.

You must correctly answer 80-90 questions which pass mark somewhere in the bottom 80. It has 120 minutes (unless you are in a non-English native region where an extra 30 minutes you get), so for all in North America and Western Europe, which is about 1 minute or per question!.


Type of questions:

It seems that there are at least about 5-6 different types of questions out there, namely:

. "Choose the best option," just does not mean you have to choose a "radio button", among many others. This really means that you have to choose the "best or most appropriate based on Cisco" to maintain its bias / geek control technique and play (swallow your pride for a great cause!). One of the pitfalls is to ensure that going through all options before choosing the "best" option perceived

. “Choose n out of m answers“, this is where you have to pick the said # of choices out of all of those given. Don’t worry, exam engine ensures that you select the asked # of choices, so it is literally “fool proof”!

."Choose all that apply" this may be difficult because it does not say the # of options you have to choose what is essentially "pick the ones that make sense." Please use judgment rather carefully.

. Drag and drop (using mouse), this is where you would align the correct “concept/term” and “details” pairs together in a row. Please avoid rushing through them and ensure that correct choices are dragged-n-dropped before moving on.

. Simulation/Scenario based, this is where things get more difficult. All I can say is you have to pay attention and spend time all you have or need to pick the "best" "most appropriate" or responses. A ray of light is that once you get the hang of the given scenario or simulation, you can almost "take it all home" if you know what I mean!