Cart
There’s been a lot of conversations and much consternation about the verbal portion of the CCIE lab that has been added to the R&S track. To borrow from Shakespeare I think that this is much ado about nothing. As we prepare for a CCIE the motivation is to become experts in the industry – to stand out from the throng of network engineers worldwide. Part of that preparation was a lot of theoretical study for the written exam and a fair bit of rack time to prepare for the lab exam. Theory plus application equals expertise.
So here’s my question for today: what’s the worst thing that could happen to the CCIE program?
My answer is: people who cheat still passing thus detracting from the certification’s value.
Almost every IT industry certification has been compromised due to the nature of multiple choice exams and the natural human desire to pass by the easiest possible method. The CCIE is one of the few that has remained valuable due to the requirement to sit through a challenging lab and thus prove your skills. Even that process is now in jeopardy, hence Cisco’s new requirement to validate theoretical knowledge during the open-ended questions at the beginning of the lab.
My advice to people studying for the lab is: don’t panic and don’t change your study method. Our students are still passing due to proper preparation and dedication. When they read the books on the required reading list (see my post So Much Information Part One for a list of books to read) and study for the lab with high quality preparation materials the open ended questions are dismissed (as they should be) as easy and not worth thinking about.
I want each and every one of you to go away and think about this: most CCIE’s who I’ve spoken to describe the CCIE as the greatest intellectual accomplishment of their lifetime. In that context, is having to answer a few basic questions to safeguard that accomplishment really something worth worrying about?
Study hard, do labs and we’ll see you with your number sometime soon.
Cheers,
Jared
Great post and I fully agree. I think it is very good that Cisco introduced the questions, even further, they should go back to the early days, doing much more troubleshooting. They will do this in future, we will see.
For all of us who learned hours and hours and did the lab in a honest way, it is necessary to really keep the cheaters off!!
Great post and I fully agree. I think it is very good that Cisco introduced the questions, even further, they should go back to the early days, doing much more troubleshooting. They will do this in future, we will see.
For all of us who learned hours and hours and did the lab in a honest way, it is necessary to really keep the cheaters off!!
Hey Jared,
I have to politely disagree an a few points. The worst thing that could happen to the CCIE is that normally qualified individuals will start failing and the cheaters keep passing. Also, the short answer questions are written, not verbal.
I think the community in general encourages steps towards weeding out the cheaters as long as it doesn’t weed out the qualified individuals as well. But I don’t think Cisco did a very good job when they rolled out the short answer questions.
Mainly, I think they did a bad job at communicating the change. About all they really said was that you’d get 4-5 short answer questions before the exam and you have to pass them to pass the lab. Also, the questions are based on the lab blueprint topics.
Until people started getting the questions and looking at their score reports, we had no idea how the scoring worked. For instance, how many of the questions do we have to get correct? How about that the score is reflected as all or nothing on your report. So you don’t even know how many questions you got wrong. I think there are still some fuzzy areas. Also, Cisco (as far as I can tell) has never posted any sample questions and answers. So we have no clue as to what sort of questions we might see and what level of detail in the answers is acceptable.
I think the biggest beef I have with it is that it introduces an aspect of the exam where luck of the draw comes into play. You might be able to answer 95% of the questions in their database. But get 2 questions that you can’t, and you’re done. No possibility to make up for it in other areas like you can in the lab.
And seriously… if the written and lab exams can be dumped, so can the short answer questions. It’ll just take a little time and we’ll be back in the same boat.
Hey Jared,
I have to politely disagree an a few points. The worst thing that could happen to the CCIE is that normally qualified individuals will start failing and the cheaters keep passing. Also, the short answer questions are written, not verbal.
I think the community in general encourages steps towards weeding out the cheaters as long as it doesn’t weed out the qualified individuals as well. But I don’t think Cisco did a very good job when they rolled out the short answer questions.
Mainly, I think they did a bad job at communicating the change. About all they really said was that you’d get 4-5 short answer questions before the exam and you have to pass them to pass the lab. Also, the questions are based on the lab blueprint topics.
Until people started getting the questions and looking at their score reports, we had no idea how the scoring worked. For instance, how many of the questions do we have to get correct? How about that the score is reflected as all or nothing on your report. So you don’t even know how many questions you got wrong. I think there are still some fuzzy areas. Also, Cisco (as far as I can tell) has never posted any sample questions and answers. So we have no clue as to what sort of questions we might see and what level of detail in the answers is acceptable.
I think the biggest beef I have with it is that it introduces an aspect of the exam where luck of the draw comes into play. You might be able to answer 95% of the questions in their database. But get 2 questions that you can’t, and you’re done. No possibility to make up for it in other areas like you can in the lab.
And seriously… if the written and lab exams can be dumped, so can the short answer questions. It’ll just take a little time and we’ll be back in the same boat.
Having seen the questions, the false positives will be few. A ccie should be able to answer cCna level questions even if they are not multiple guess
Having seen the questions, the false positives will be few. A ccie should be able to answer cCna level questions even if they are not multiple guess
Hey Roger – thanks for your support, much appreciated.
Hey Roger – thanks for your support, much appreciated.
Hey Jeff, thanks for your well articulated response.
You’re correct, the verbal (or written) portion is comprised of 4-5 open ended short answer questions with a maximum of 30 minutes to complete them (and a minimum of “how fast can you answer 4-5 easy questions”). I preferred to use the term verbal, rather than written to help distinguish from the well-known “written” exam, and verbal is grammatically accurate (in the same sense as “SAT verbal”). Short-answer is probably a better term, so I’ll use that going forward.
The query you have with my open question, juxtaposed against my viewpoint, is a familiar one with respect to crossover rate and statistical confidence (ahh, that study of statistics in college is FINALLY useful) ;). This is most often applied to any subjective system of assessment, be it with the legal system, with exams, or with intrusion prevention systems – namely, what is the acceptable level at which false positives crossover with false negatives – the lower the crossover rate, the better the testing system. In the legal context, they err on the side of caution (“beyond all reasonable doubt”) with a preference to let many more guilty people go free than risk imprisoning the innocent. Exams are no different with respect to the concept.
With exams however, I’d contend that the opposite state is preferable – it being better to have a system tuned with a preference towards a having a higher confidence that students who pass should have passed (low false positives) but accepting that students who fail perhaps also should have passed. Note, I prefer this only with the assumption that the crossover rate cannot be lowered (by making the assumption that there is no more cost effective way of adding to exam integrity).
My rationale is that exams are flawed (and always will be), that people cheat, but that the responsibility of a CCIE may range into literally life or death scenarios – including design, configuration and support of networks that provide medical, electrical, security, transport systems etc. We need a benchmark certification for expertise that society in general (or representatives thereof, namely our employers) can have a high level of confidence in when hiring CCIE’s into societally critical roles. The drawback to my preference is that some candidates will lose their $1400. From a utilitarian standpoint that may be acceptable (to me, and to Cisco), but from an individual standpoint that may seem unfair (and justifiably so). On the upside, if you do genuinely deserve to pass your subsequent exam will likely be successful (assuming that the subjective grading of the is normally accurate and your first false negative fail was a statistical error).
With respect to the “dumping” of the short-answer questions, it is possible. But due to the nature of them it is easy to make up new questions daily or weekly if that is required.
Please understand that I do empathize with your position, but also accept my conclusion – that if you study correctly I doubt you have anything to worry about over the normal course of exams (namely the average of 3 attempts that it takes to pass) that you may have to take.
Study hard and you’ll have your number soon.
Cheers,
Jared
Hey Jeff, thanks for your well articulated response.
You’re correct, the verbal (or written) portion is comprised of 4-5 open ended short answer questions with a maximum of 30 minutes to complete them (and a minimum of “how fast can you answer 4-5 easy questions”). I preferred to use the term verbal, rather than written to help distinguish from the well-known “written” exam, and verbal is grammatically accurate (in the same sense as “SAT verbal”). Short-answer is probably a better term, so I’ll use that going forward.
The query you have with my open question, juxtaposed against my viewpoint, is a familiar one with respect to crossover rate and statistical confidence (ahh, that study of statistics in college is FINALLY useful) ;). This is most often applied to any subjective system of assessment, be it with the legal system, with exams, or with intrusion prevention systems – namely, what is the acceptable level at which false positives crossover with false negatives – the lower the crossover rate, the better the testing system. In the legal context, they err on the side of caution (“beyond all reasonable doubt”) with a preference to let many more guilty people go free than risk imprisoning the innocent. Exams are no different with respect to the concept.
With exams however, I’d contend that the opposite state is preferable – it being better to have a system tuned with a preference towards a having a higher confidence that students who pass should have passed (low false positives) but accepting that students who fail perhaps also should have passed. Note, I prefer this only with the assumption that the crossover rate cannot be lowered (by making the assumption that there is no more cost effective way of adding to exam integrity).
My rationale is that exams are flawed (and always will be), that people cheat, but that the responsibility of a CCIE may range into literally life or death scenarios – including design, configuration and support of networks that provide medical, electrical, security, transport systems etc. We need a benchmark certification for expertise that society in general (or representatives thereof, namely our employers) can have a high level of confidence in when hiring CCIE’s into societally critical roles. The drawback to my preference is that some candidates will lose their $1400. From a utilitarian standpoint that may be acceptable (to me, and to Cisco), but from an individual standpoint that may seem unfair (and justifiably so). On the upside, if you do genuinely deserve to pass your subsequent exam will likely be successful (assuming that the subjective grading of the is normally accurate and your first false negative fail was a statistical error).
With respect to the “dumping” of the short-answer questions, it is possible. But due to the nature of them it is easy to make up new questions daily or weekly if that is required.
Please understand that I do empathize with your position, but also accept my conclusion – that if you study correctly I doubt you have anything to worry about over the normal course of exams (namely the average of 3 attempts that it takes to pass) that you may have to take.
Study hard and you’ll have your number soon.
Cheers,
Jared
Nice response Jared. There is always the battle between keeping the cheaters from passing while allowing the adequately prepared to pass. It’s not unlike network security. You try and plug the holes as best you can without preventing authorized traffic from passing through.
I really wish Cisco would do an Ask the Expert or interactive webcast to go over the change and allow the community to get their questions answered. The unknown is the biggest cause of this bee’s nest. Everyone who hasn’t taken the lab is left to speculate on a number of details. Those who have taken it can give vague answers at best.
In the end, if I do fail out due to the the short answer questions, it won’t cause me to not try again. I doubt that it will happen. Though in the unfortunate instance that it does, my laptop might not survive flying across the room after I see my score report. =)
Nice response Jared. There is always the battle between keeping the cheaters from passing while allowing the adequately prepared to pass. It’s not unlike network security. You try and plug the holes as best you can without preventing authorized traffic from passing through.
I really wish Cisco would do an Ask the Expert or interactive webcast to go over the change and allow the community to get their questions answered. The unknown is the biggest cause of this bee’s nest. Everyone who hasn’t taken the lab is left to speculate on a number of details. Those who have taken it can give vague answers at best.
In the end, if I do fail out due to the the short answer questions, it won’t cause me to not try again. I doubt that it will happen. Though in the unfortunate instance that it does, my laptop might not survive flying across the room after I see my score report. =)
Jeff,
I saw this on another blog…might help to save your laptop. Cisco posted a couple of sample questions on the Cisco Certification support website :
http://ciscocert.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ciscocert.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=4667&p_created=1236289340
Jeff,
I saw this on another blog…might help to save your laptop. Cisco posted a couple of sample questions on the Cisco Certification support website :
http://ciscocert.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ciscocert.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=4667&p_created=1236289340