IE Mock Lab 1 – A Disaster!

Well I attempted my first Mock lab today. According to the description on IE's website, this mock lab should be attemped when you are good 4 months away from your exam. This implies that this is a very basic lab that everything should ace.

Well I didn't. Looks like I am not even close to the actual lab I know CCIEPursuit scored 89 on IE Mock Lab 1 and I was hoping to get atleast 80. From my calculations, if I get 50 I will be lucky.

So what happened? Well one word "PANIC". I started an hour late and kept rushing through tasks. I was not able to skip a task and wanted to finish every task I touched. I know this is not a good habit and I need to learn quick. I should be able to pick and choose while going through the lab.

Overall the lab was not bad. I would rate it at level 5. But once the panic stage comes through, that level keeps going up I did have trouble with a couple of tasks but I should have easily scored 80. I also had hard time looking through the Documentation. Not that I don't know where to find things but I just can't get myself out of the typical exam shell where we are not suppose to look through material.

I have got a few things to catch up here. I am kind of dishearted right now so I don't go in detail about the lab itself. I think I will hit the gym and come back and finish Narbik's WB Vol 3.

So what lesson did I learn? It appears that I am about 1 year away from the actual CCIE LAB.

*EDIT*

I got my report card this morning, well I was correct. I got a 44! I think this has to be the lowest grade and a record in CCIE history Ofcourse that's not a record I wanted to claim but I have it anyways. Looking through the report, most of the things would be called stupid mistakes. I have to take care of a few things at work but I will do a detailed review of my trashy performance later this evening.

*EDIT*

As you can see, I missed MOST of the easy points just because I didn't plan it right and took the "page1 to last page" approach. I plan on using the @$$kicking from this lab to motivate me for IE Mock Lab 3.