I STUDIED!!!

That’s right. I started studying for the BSCI just right after I passed my CCNA exam last year – that’s approximately 9 months ago. Not counting the 1.5 months that I was not studying for BSCI  due to a project at work, I studied for this test for a total of about 6 months – give or take a few.

Here’s how I did:

Implementing EIGRP operations: 88%
Implement multiarea OSPF operations: 70%
Describe integrated IS-IS: 85%
Implement Cisco IOS routing features: 80%
Implement BGP for enterprise ISP connectivity: 81%
Implement IPv6: 75%

Score needed to pass: 790
My score: 855

Obviously, it is not a perfect score. But I am extremely happy with the results given that my initial feeling just after I finished the exam was that I probably scored in the low 800s - I was hoping that at least. There was a big part of me that thought I was screwed and that I probably should think about rescheduling again. I honestly didn’t know (based on my performance during the test) whether I passed or not.

I took the test in Irvine, CA – about one hour away from where I live. There are other testing centers within 15 minutes of me but I chose this testing center because it is the only one close enough that offered exam dates on weekends. I arrived at the testing center about 10 minutes late and had to wait another 30 minutes because the room was packed. I’ve never seen that place as busy before from the last three times I’ve been there. There were usually only 4-5 people there in my previous trips. <Just got interrupted by my 3yr old: “Are you writing about routers again?’ LOL! Precious!> Normally I’m cool with distractions since I can be pretty good with blocking things out. But for some reason, it was hard for me to concentrate this time. I attributed that to nerves. For the last two weeks I hit the books really hard and was unrelenting in my studies – reviewing from 7pm – 1am. I told my wife that I felt good about this test - that I’m very confident I was going to pass. However, I started feeling the jitters and nervousness around Thursday and Friday before the test. My wife thought it was because of stress. I thought its a combination of that, lack of sleep, and an unusual high dose of caffeine over a prolonged period - something I don’t ingest on a regular basis.

I found the test extremely challenging. For someone who does not work with Cisco devices on a regular basis or does not have at least 2 or 3 years of experience with it, you will find that the exam really exposes not only your ability to memorize little bits of minutiae, but also how you use that knowledge to apply it to different kinds of scenarios that you might not necessarily see on a regular basis. That’s probably an obvious statement. But that was just the very thought that kept playing in my head over and over. Even then I started wondering how someone who works with these technologies every day would feel about the test. There were some questions that I thought might have applied to real world scenarios, and there are some that I thought were just purely theoretical and that would never be done in the real world. But then again what do I know? I just hit Ctrl-Alt-Del all day for my users.

Here are some more of my thoughts about this exam (especially for those looking to take it soon):

• There is a pretty hefty dose of multicast on this exam. If you are using the study guide by Teare and Paquet, you might find that the materials provided in the books might not be enough. I know for sure I saw some things in there that I’ve never seen on the book. Either I never saw it, or just ignored it.    Pay close attention to the details in that section. Learn to interpret the show commands. I can’t say which show commands so it’s probably in your best interest to know them all.
• Come in prepared for IPv6. I thought I did. And for the most part I think it wasn’t too bad. But there was a section where I spent a considerable amount of time tyring to figure out. I think I did. Again, I saw things on IPv6 that I thought they would not test. The way the study guide covered IPv6, I got the impression that there are things that were not going to be tested on the exam – based on the amount of coverage (or lack thereof) given to them in the book. And again I was caught surprised by it. I think I did ok on the question though.
• Coming into the test, I was most confident with IS-IS and BGP. And although I spent twice as much studying OSPF than all the others, it’s strange that I received the fewest points on it. Reading Cisco forums over the last month gave me an indication that IS-IS was one of the big three that stumped most people (multicast and IPv6 being the other 2). However, I didn’t see it that way about IS-IS. I thought it was straightforward and easy. If you read the section of the BSCI study guide thoroughly, you should do fine with IS-IS. With BGP, I supplemented it with Doyle’s Routing TCP/IP, Volume II (CCIE Professional Development).
• One surprising area I didn’t expect to do as well on (but ironically did do well) is EIGRP. That and routing update manipulation (distribute-lists, route maps) were the ones I dreaded and hoped not to see too much of on the exam. Well, I pretty much knew that I’d see a good amount of EIGRP. But I was hoping not a lot of route maps, access-lists, etc. But there is a fair amount of it, so know it. 
• It’s been said before in the forums and anyboby else who has taken the exam before: ”Time Management“. I think I managed my time just perfectly. By the time I clicked the answer on the last question, there was exactly 30 seconds left on the exam. I did spend a good 15 minutes on a couple of different sims though. But picking up from the last two tests I’ve taken, I learned not to double-read the questions and learn to scan it a little faster. Because I made myself do this, I also forced my brain to concentrate better knowing that I will only get one chance to read the question. Of course I didn’t do this technique for every question. Obviously there are some that will be worded a little bit funny and you’ll have to re-read it again. But try not to do this for every question because you’ll definitely run out of time. What I did was scan the multiple choices, read the question, then read the choices again. I made sure I only gave myself 1 minute at most to answer the questions. If you’re prepared, there will be some that’ll only take you 10 seconds before you can come up with the answer in your head before even seeing the choices. I love those types of questions.
• Be mindful of what you are clicking. I missed a lot of points on a scenario-based question when I clicked “next” question instead of clicking the button for the next section of the same question. I know I got the first one right, but I’ll never know how I would have done on the next few scenarios. So be careful. Manage your time but don’t be too careless.
• This is more of a gripe than anything: I got one sim question where no matter how many times I typed in a command, the wrong value comes up when you do a “sh run”. I know I was typing it correctly and I double, triple, quadruple, and multiple checked. I lost 5 minutes doing this over and over. I did the “no” command to delete the specific config, did a “sh run” and showed that it wasn’t there. Saved the config, and did another “sh run” to verify it was still deleted. Reconfigured again and made sure I was typing it correctly. Yup, it’s correct, alright! Did another “sh run” and a different value was showing up again from what I typed in. I was so frustrated that I wanted to click the comment button to tell Cisco what a piece $#!t the simulator was. Why can’t they just use the real IOS? Anyway, I ended up doing a ”copy start run” to restore it to the original config. That worked. I made my config and didn’t bother verifying. I was just hoping I got partial points. It’s a moot point now that I passed. But I was very frustrating and could be a difference from borderline failing or borderline passing. Hopefully those taking it in the future won’t have the same experience.  

Here’s a summary of how I prepared for the exam:

• Study materials:
• Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) (Authorized Self-Study Guide) (3rd Edition).
• Bits and pieces of Routing TCP/IP, Volume 1 (2nd Edition) (CCIE Professional Development).
• BGP section of Routing TCP/IP, Volume II (CCIE Professional Development)
• CCNP Building Scalable Internetworks Lab Portfolio - used sparingly. 

 

• Like I said earlier, I spent 6 months of cumulative studying, spread out in a span of close to 9 months. An advantage of this, obviously, is that it gave me a lot of time to let concepts sink in and become almost second nature. I don’t know if I would recommend this approach though. My original plan was for this to be a four-month thing, maybe 5 months at the most. With that said, I would go with 4-5 months if given the choice. Most people with a lot of experience can do it in 2-3 months.
• Study between 2-3 hours a day. When I started studying, I spent 1.5 hours in the morning (from 7am – 8:30pm) and about 1 to 1.5 hours at night (from 9:30 – 11pm). Sometime during the year, my schedule at work changed so that I could no longer study in the morning. So I went from about 8 – 11 or 9 -12 at night. And I did this almost everyday picking a day here and there to take a break.
• I created a study schedule which I followed as close as possible. This is very important in that it allowed me to track my progress and visualize where I need to be at certain points in the future. You need to be flexible with the schedule, however. Because I have a family, a job and other obligations in my community, I had to make sure I can track my progress closely and not stray away too far from my plans.
• I spent a lot of time labbing. Although I own a decent rack of routers and switches, it was much more convenient for me to use Dynagen/Dynamips. In fact you’ll find that all of the lab exercises that I have blogged about in the past were done using Dynamips. Every now and then I’d fire up the old routers and switches to blow off some dust and rust.
• During the past month of reviewing, I went to specific forums such as techexams.net and networking-forum.com and searched the forums for threads with “BSCI and fail” on them. I copied all the posts that had anything to do with people failing the exam and took notes on what particular areas people had trouble with. Not surprisingly, the big three that people mostly talked about were IPv6, Multicast, and IS-IS.
• Lastly, I blogged as much as I can about the things I was learning. I found this helped me slow my learning down a little bit and helped me think about the subjects in a more interactive way. 

There you go. I’m sure there’s much more I can write about but I’m tired. So hopefully the little bits of information I have can help others taking the exam – or compare their experiences with mine.