Preparation:
I don’t study well. I prefer to measure my current understanding then fill in the gaps; which I wasn’t able to really do until the past week or so; I got a good grasp when attending a training course that I understood most of the content fairly well, especially in the technical sections. Booked the exam 3 weeks prior and that was my motivation to get moving. Didn’t really put much effort into studying until the week before; had picked up the materials here and there over the past 6 months, but not much more than a quick read on the bus to work a few times per week.
Night before:
Night before: went out to dinner with my wife and had a beer, came home and she quizzed me from the Sybex practice tests book (3-4 questions from each chapter), followed by early night about 9:30pm
Morning of: woke up @ 5am, showered, coffee, few last crams with Boson targeting a few keywords that I was worried about
Headed to exam centre early and grabbed a coffee & breakfast, then headed up and checked in @ 8am.
Exam:
I always do a brain dump as soon as I sit down of what’s on my mind; I jotted down the OSI model and Rings 0-3. I didn’t use the pad again.
I breezed through most of it, most answers came quickly to mind and I was done and dusted at about 9:20am (80 mins) & 102 questions. Definitely didn’t touch on a lot of areas I intensely studied.
I think the best thing I did to prepare was to watch Larry’s video linked above. I think this cemented the language and the concepts you NEED to think about in the exam firmly in my mind; there were definitely a few questions where I would have answered differently if I didn’t think back to Larry’s video! If you’re stuck on a question, remember to assess risk, analyse the situation, provide safety to people and do cost benefit analysis. These points really helped!