Bob’s interweb party house

Gotcha. No secrets here. Once you’ve worked that hard and endured that stress-ball of an examination, second only to Cisco’s CCIE Lab in terms of mental strain, you will NOT want to risk losing it by violating Red Hat’s confidentiality agreement. They can sue you, too, so you won’t event want to do it for money.

I sat for the exam yesterday. I arrived early, as it was in the center of traffic hell in Tysons Corner. I picked up a drink at the Blimpie (THEY HAVE A BLIMPIE IN THE BUILDING. HOW COOL IS THAT?) There were maybe ten of us total. I’m pretty sure everyone I spoke with had taken it once before. I had not. I have, however, sat for MANY other exams, so I wasn’t intimidated. It COULDN’T be as hard as CCIE, right? RIGHT??? No cell phones during the exam. Check. No students from Syria, Iran, or a few other hostile countries may sit for the exam. Something about encryption export regulations, he said. Maybe they don’t want any of them obtaining the cert, for which they will be actively recruiting shortly. That could be a good sign. “They” being high-dollar employers, hopefully.

First part, break-fix. Instant feedback. Nailed it 100%. Called home for congratulations. Catered lunch. Would it violate the CA to discuss the coffee and lunchmeat varieties available? Yummy.

Second part, install-config. I swear, I touched EVERY technology I could think of during this portion. I approached it by making circles next to each task, putting a dot when I thought they were done, filling them in when they had been tested as well as possible after reboot. I was surprised when I had been through all tasks and still had 35 minutes left. I used the time to double-check each task after another reboot, making checkmarks down the left side of my pages.

Training? Nil. I used Red Hat’s own exam/course objectives as a guideline, alternating between the Red Hat Deployment Guide and Jang’s study guide (updated for RHEL 5), spending the last two days cramming on the subjects in which I knew I was weak, and practicing break/fix scenarios in VMWare machines on my laptop. It’s easy to solve a problem when you know what caused it, BUT… if you DO it enough times, you will recognize the symptoms right away and find the solution immediately.

I called home again to report that I felt really positive about the experience, especially after nailing the first half. I was pretty positive that I had nailed the second half as well, but since some of it wasn’t described quite as clearly as I would have liked, and some of it was virtually untestable, I wondered how much that could potentially take off of my score.

I got home and immediately checked my email. First half: 100% as expected. Second half: RHCT portion, 93%. RHCE portion, 89%. WELL within the passing range. I didn’t just pass, I kicked its ass.

I wish I could tell you exactly what you need to know to pass that exam. All I can tell you, honestly, is do what I did, and be prepared to know EVERYTHING. It’s that kind of exam. They WILL test you on objectives in which you are weak. So don’t be weak.