I got some really interesting and I think exciting news to share . Let's talk about it so today, Or rather is it today, No a few days ago, I didn't realize this because I don't follow these things super closely, But cisco announced that starting right now, Candidates for their associate and professional level exams should be prepared for lablets in During the exam, Let's take a look at their announcements, So here it is new performance-based lab exam items, Build opportunities. Let's, Let's take a look at this real quick, A new type of performance based lab exam item is giving cisco associate and professional certification exam candidates more opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
These lab items complement the more traditional, Multiple choice and drag and drop item types which are particularly suited to measure skills related to theory, Knowledge and conceptual comprehension. This new lab item type aims to measure the application of knowledge in a hands-on environment for configuring and troubleshooting. So again, What's this thing the drag and drop which we've all been very familiar with, The traditional, Multiple choice, Drag and drop items are particularly suited to measure skills related to theory, Knowledge and conceptual comprehension, Whereas a lab is really good for hands-on the knowledge in a Hands-On for configuring and troubleshooting, Why is this so good? In my opinion, This is really good, Because, If you've readed any of my articles about the ccna and the ccnp exams, One of my big frustrations is IT question you about ridiculous trivia. T'Re trying to make these exams hard, The exams need to be difficult.
You know t're trying to weed out people who just aren't you know capable of doing this type of work and, At the same time, T're also trying to make it difficult to cheat. You know with using brain dumps and stuff, So t make these questions really hard and really specific, But it's also stupid, Like t ask you questions about things that no normal person, Even the most skilled network engineer, Would ever bother to memorize. It's things that you know.
If you did it every single day, You would eventually memorize it, But it's also things that most people are going to print out and t're going to just if t need the information at all t're going to like pin it to the wall of their cubicle. Or it's just something: t're going to look up from time to time or t're going to have a you know a pdf on their desktop that t you know, Look at when t need that information once every couple of three weeks or something you know, That's how Real people work real people, Don't memorize all these things, It's stupid. So why test on that? And it's been one of my big frustrations, So I'm really hoping that what this announcement means is t're going to be able to get away from all those ridiculous minutiae questions. Ask real questions that make sure you understand the theory and then test your ability to troubleshoot using hands-on, And it makes sense because you know nowadays it is so easy to emulate a cisco environment.
Why not? Why not do it now, You know I I don't know. I don't know how this is going to work. Presumably you can still do this. If you're testing from home I mean, I guess we're going to find out, T didn't say anything. Otherwise, Basically, You know t have a little screenshot.
Here it's going to be a tabbed system, So you can see the question and then get into the command line. You know pretty pretty basic stuff, Let's see their little blurb here. How perform performance-based lab exam items build opportunities? The ultimate benefit of this new lab is labs is the candidate's opportunity after passing the exam? What's that? one of the one of the values of the certification is to help differentiate yourself among your peers on the job market and that's kind of what we're getting at. Isn'T it like.
We want these certifications to mean something, And I feel like with cisco, T've backslid. I'Ve talked about this before, But back in the day, Man when I first started certification back in the late 90s. When I got my first certifications back in the late 90s, It meant something man you you were certified. That meant something, And, Of course, Like anything, You know we live in a capitalist, World. So when there's an opportunity to make money someone's going to fill that opportunity - and there is an opportunity to make money by helping people cheat on these exams with brain dumps and stuff - and it's only it's only - you know continued for for that entire time.
So there's you know you can find the the answers to the questions t're out there, Like all you do, Is look around. You can find the answers, But you can't you can't memorize a lab. You can't memorize a lab and that's one of those things. Man.
You know if there were periods in the past where cisco had labs on their exams. T were, T were simulations t kind of sucked, Because it was a very limited version of I mean it wasn't ios it was. It was a simulation, It wasn't an emulation which we're running today.
It was a simulation. So you had this really pared-down experience where you couldn't see. All the you know, Help didn't really work. Lots of things didn't work things that a real engineer still does even real engineers.
Like you know, One of the things I love is when you read you read a skilled, Experienced cisco engineer type their commands you're going to see touch type question mark typed. A question mark question. Mark question. Mark question like t're, Always doing question marks because nobody, Why memorize this stuff? Why memorize, Especially like these really long detailed commands like you know if you're oh, I don't know changing the the metrics in eigrp? Are there people out there that have memorized the the k values and like which order t're in in the command, I'm sure there are? I never did like just hit the question mark. You know there you go so you know stuff like that.
Um, Don't memorize things! You don't need to memorize. That's it's just that's! That's! That's like how you that's. That's that's actually, A way of to succeed. You take advantage of the tools that that you have so I'm really happy that t're emulating these things so again. What are t saying is defeat this this the defender defeat. I can't say the word differentiate differentiate yourself among your peers in the job market.
Our certification recipients tell us that their cisco certifications help them to demonstrate their continued competency in this fact fast-paced quickly. Evolving marketplace: enhancing cisco's exams with performance-based lab items provides additional opportunities for candidates to demonstrate that to current and future employers that t have the skills and abilities need to perform their job. Exactly like exactly. Anybody can can memorize test questions but to sit down and do the work does require an additional level of skill, And so I'm I'm like I'm, I'm just telling you right now. I'm super happy and I think you should be too especially, And we'll talk about this in just one second because it's it's relatively easy for you to build your own lab at home.
It's relatively easy! So, Let's uh! Let's take a look at some of these questions and answers: does this include devnet, Probably which exams to expect it on our advice? So this is what's important from the computing community manager. Our advice is to continue to use the exam topics and your study prep guide, Where action-based verbs are used so and when you look at the the exam topics it'll say configure troubleshoot when it has those action-based verbs. Candidates should be prepared, With performance-based question type. So whenever you see a action-based verb, I guess you know most of them are like describe. Probably it's going to be an accent anyway. Whatever you know what t're saying usually when it says something like configure or troubleshoot, That's when you're going to see these things.
Will this be applied to professional exams? Yes, T already said that slab implant and then , So he's saying like when is this going to happen? This guy said we we are advising all candidates to be prepared to encounter these question types on all associate and professional level exams moving forward. That was the big key point that I wanted out of this. And it's so so be prepared like moving forward starting a few days ago. If you take the test, You should be prepared to do to a simulation. Excuse me: what question mark tab completion, The guy questions.
These are not sim questions like before. That's what I was talking about back in the day. You said these simulated questions.
This is a real cisco is environment. This is emulated, Or you know, Using virtualized commands can be typed in short and do not need to be expanded with the tab, Assuming the tab shows. So that was one of the other things from the exam that I forgot to mention like. So you couldn't do question work, But then you also couldn't abbreviate and like if you're like me, There's a lot of commands that you only know the abbreviated version.
Like you just type out the abbreviated version, You might not even realize that that is abbreviated. It's just how what you learned to type so there's some it's coming for all exams, Associated professional! It's starting right now be prepared right now and . It is a real, Cisco, Ios environment. I think this is super cool, So, , Now you're studying you're like dude. What the, How do I prepare for this? Well, You have options.
so here's one really good option. It's a little expensive! So maybe this, But I love this boson netsim. It is a simulator, But it's really really detailed.
So you can see it's a little pricey, But these are like real labs. So, Like t ask you real questions, T walk you through doing real tasks . This is a pretty good value, Bosoncom their netsim product.
Another option you have is cisco packet tracer. This is going to help you now I don't know. I think there is some clI stuff in packet.
Tracer. I'Ve never used it to be frank, But you can go to cisco, Just google, Cisco packet tracer and it's free. You have to sign up for a couple of their free courses to get access to it, But it's completely free option. You have download cisco modeling labs stop seeing cookies pop-up blocker again.
This is a little expensive. That's 200 bucks a year now! You know this is your career 200 bucks . Is that really that big of a price? You know I don't know it's? I know it can be really difficult. I remember back man again when I was a kid in my early 20s I was married and my wife - and I you know like we saw the value of these certifications and we had to sacrifice so that I could buy books and pay for tests.
That was a sacrifice like we had to say: we are not going to be able to pay for x this month so that we could you know so that jeremiah can study and it it worked it. It completely changed our lives. I think it's worth saving the money and sacrificing to to to do what you need to do to build your career. That's my opinion.
You know. Other people have different opinions. Um, You know. The other thing you have is even g of course.
Of course, Even g, So even g and now this is the tool that I use. It is completely free for the community version. If you want, You can pay for the professional version. Has a few nice features 126 dollars.
So actually it's not that different than cisco modeling labs I mean it's cheaper, But then you still got to figure out how you're going to get your your images and then that takes me to the last thing. So if you are using evg, Which is what I would recommend, Because it's so powerful and it does so much more than cisco you're going to need images to do that and those can be hard to find, But actually no that's. That's not what I meant to say what I'm going to say: exact opposite of that t're really easy to find. I have even been on. This is not a joke. I'Ve been on cisco calls where the cisco you know these are head.
People over at cisco, Involving their training, Do a little wink, Wink, Nudge nudge. You know wink wink, Nudge, Nudge, Because you're all fully licensed wink wink nudge nudge. You know like t know that you need to study, And so you know like don't be stupid about it. Don'T don't put your career in risk by doing by you know dumb things that might get cisco pissed off at you, But if you, If you want to search for the even g images, Just you know google it like I just right now I sat down It took me about a minute, A minute to google and find a complete list of not a complete list, A complete package of images for just about every single network manufacturer that will run on evg just about everything, Cisco, Everything, Aruba, Everything, Palo, Alto, Everything juniper Massive list - and it's like t were charging 30 bucks or something so if I were to search for something you know like just think about terms even g images download share stuff like that you'll find it , So listen! That's kind of what I wanted to say.
I think this is really good news. It might change the way you study, But honestly, If you're studying the right way, It's probably not going to change the way you study, You should be prepared to do this kind of stuff anyway, And if anything, I think this is really going to empower the certification. Even more to make them mean more going forward, So I hope you found this helpful I'll include the link to the cisco blog post in the description below alright have a good
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