No, Cisco is not listening. ;-) Serisouly, they don't follow Group Study
(not officially any way.)
The Cisco course developers wrote the material in the Cisco Press course
books. Many of them have an engineering background but prefer to develop
courses and write. I was one, for example. ;-) The idea of using course
developers and writers that aren't subject matter experts doesn't work,
although many companies have tried it. The results are awful. Having
engineers write doesn't work either in some cases. But there are people who
can do both and that's generally who Cisco hires in the training
department. (with some exceptions)
Regarding the tests, I'm not sure, but I don't think they are written by
subject matter experts. They are written by testing experts that go through
the material written by the course developers and pick out phrases to turn
into questions.
Regarding configuring Cisco switches. I agree. It's way harder than it
needs to be. There are some things that just make me laugh out loud they
are so ugly for no reason. I have a theory about this. I think the commands
are planned by junior software engineers. But that theory may be as wrong
as your theory about Cisco course developers.
Priscilla
At 01:29 PM 8/23/01, Leigh Anne Chisholm wrote:
>Unfortunately Peter, having just written the Routing 2.0 and Switching 2.0
>exams, I'd have to disagree. To pass the exams, Cisco Press is the best
>source you can get if that's your only goal.
>
>The old CCNP 1.0 exam series took a lot of heat for being ambiguous, poorly
>worded, difficult to understand. Likely they were written by people with
>technical knowledge that didn't have any experience writing. The new CCNP
>2.0 exam series is straight forward, very little ambiguity, and the
>questions seem to be word-for-word straight from the course material. I
>think Cisco likely went in the opposite direction and hired people that knew
>nothing about networking but could write. With a miniscule of knowledge
>about multicasting, I read over one chapter the night before, skipped the
>second on how to configure multicasting, and scored 100%. My third highest
>section score was multi-layer switching, which I read over the morning of
>the exam.
>
>Cisco--are you listening?
>
>I'm extremely disappointed in the quality of the questions on the exam. I'm
>tinkering around with a Cat 5 and a 2924XL right now. It's been a year and
>a half since I last touched a Cat 5 (I was quite proficient back then) but
>I'm constantly accessing the help facility to get the correct format of the
>command on the Cat 5 and as for the 2924XL? That's just plain ugly. I'm
>used to the 1900 series IOS commands. "Trunk on". "Set trunk on". Who the
>heck would think that a trunk command would be prefaced with "switchport"?
>That's the last place I looked on the 2924XL.
>
>It's now ungodly easy to become a paper CCNP - because I passed the exam and
>yet I'm as awkward as can be navigating the switch. Yes I know the concepts
>and theory... but it will take me a bit of time to get up to speed finding
>my way around--and I'll be there in about two and a half weeks. THAT's when
>I should be able to pass the exam--and not before. With the relative ease
>of questions, with the fact that you don't have to apply the knowledge to
>pass (just regurgitate), the CCNP certification won't be highly regarded in
>the industry and it shouldn't be.
>
>One thing I might mention--is that I'm disappointed in the exams--not the
>Cisco Press material. Cisco Press's books are a great resource for finding
>out how to do things. If the only goal is to pass the exam, Cisco Press is
>the way to go. And that's truly disappointing.
>
>What we do at CertificationZone.com... what I do at Sybex... that's such a
>completely different philosophy. The focus there is on learning--having the
>skills and knowledge to pass the exam. You've got to think because you're
>not spoon fed. CertificationZone as a preparation source is just awesome
>(but then again, I'm biased aren't I?)
>
>If you're the type of person that wants to use the tests to determine how
>well they've developed a skill set... CertificationZone and other 3rd party
>publishers that publish quality material are the best source of study
>material because you won't pass based on straight regurgitation. Moreover,
>if you pass your CCNP exams based on 3rd party sources, in my opinion you're
>more likely prepared "on the job" at "at the lab" if you're going for your
>CCIE. It's funny that Cisco spends so much time worrying about the NDA when
>really you can find the questions to the exam almost word-for-word in a
>Cisco Press book.
>
>Cisco... why not try hiring technical people that can write? Why not try
>hiring people that can develop questions that require knowledge to be
>applied to scenerios?
>
>Cisco--are you listening?
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
>Peter Van Oene
>Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 6:39 AM
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: RE: Best study materials to use [7:16946]
>
>
>Cisco Press is just another publisher and in my opinion indicates no more or
>less valuable text than any other publisher.
>
>*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>
>On 8/23/2001 at 6:10 AM Munzir Khan wrote:
>
> >Cisco Press is always the best bacause it is more specific what you see in
> >the real exams although some people read other books along with cisco
press
> >which are more users friendly and easy to pickup like sybex, examcram etc.
> >
> >CCDP is just an addition to CCNP where you see more about desgining
> >networks
> >and you have to give two additional exams CCDA & CID to obtain CCDP cert.
> >
> >Cheers.
________________________
Priscilla Oppenheimer
http://www.priscilla.com
Message Posted at:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=17022&t=16946
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