Cisco Mulls Adding Verbal Interview To CCIE Exams 117
Julie188 writes "Here's a new idea to stop certification test-taking cheaters; Cisco is considering introducing a verbal interview portion to its CCIE lab exams across the world. Cisco confirmed that it is running a pilot in its exam lab in Beijing, China that involves candidates taking a 10-minute verbal interview as part of their lab exam. Cisco said that if the pilot is successful, the interview could be introduced as a requirement for CCIE Routing & Switching candidates worldwide. The company has been running the pilot since August."
Re:What about other certs? (Score:3, Informative)
For the record I couldn't care less. I find my self wondering more and more each year why I am celebrating a holiday of a religion I don't even follow. (kids) We need a return to the root of our holidays. Christmas was a pagan year end celebration. Easter was a pagan holiday celebrating fertility. It fell in the spring as winter ended and new life sprouted. The Christians usurped these holidays as representing their beliefs and their christ.
Maybe my name should be christ-sleigher.
Re:How did they fudge the practical lab? (Score:5, Informative)
I thought the lab had a verbal component, but apparently not. In any case, good idea.
It isn't verbal, just not written. I don't know the exact details because I haven't taken it myself but I work with a CCIE. There is a troubleshooting lab that you must take which accompanies the written portion. This used to be setup such that you would setup the lab equipment for your personal test on day 1. Overnight they would screw it up and then the 2nd day you had to fix it. Now it is just one day and you don't set it up from the ground up (cabling, etc.) You have access to Cisco docs to do the lab but you are limited to 9 hours to do the lab portion. If you are spending all your time looking up some piece of info you won't come close to completing it and some of the tasks are cumulative. Read this [com.com] for more info. They changed the format back in 2001. I don't see how anyone could really cheat on this part since you have to know how to configure the devices but maybe this interview is supposed to aid with minimizing the cheaters on the written portion. If you are cheating there though then I'd think you would have to cheat on the lab and if you don't need to cheat on the lab that you wouldn't have to on the written but I assume Cisco is seeing some trends that indicate cheating in some way.
Re:What about other certs? (Score:3, Informative)
Its great for just configuring one router, but college still played a huge role for testing a whole "virtual internet" of routers, since I lacked the funding for such a setup at the time (again, college being the keyword here). I'm due up for taking the exam again pretty soon, so I might have to dig out the images again.
Re:Cisco should be careful (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about other certs? (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft has been doing this in a fashion for a little while. Look at the Microsoft Certified Master and Microsoft Certified Architect programs. The Master program is a real class that you take, complete with exams and simulations to take. The architect program typically has you appear in front of a peer review board to get your certification. They're great programs that I'm considering going through, but the price tags are a bit steep for both, and you need to clear some time/additional money to travel to Redmond (if you're not already there) for these certifications.
Re:Cisco should be careful (Score:1, Informative)
Why should they not? Seriously, most of the material is in English anyways, and most of the work-settings require that you handle those with English speaking customers etc anyways. It is the ugly, but de facto language of technology nowadays.
This won't stop cheating... (Score:3, Informative)
People cheat on the lab portion of the CCIE by sending in people to memorize the lab topology and various questions. Then afterward they report back to other with the topology, features etc... It's no different than memorizing the written questions except while there are hundreds of written questions that can be selected for your exam, there's probably only a dozen or so different lab exams.
I do like how VMWares forthcoming VCDX exam will have a verbal component. Similar to how one has to verbally defend their PhD thesis. I for one would like candidates to be able to explain why they made a certain decision or the benefits of going with one design over another. Rather than just seeing how quickly you can configure up the features or memorize test questions.
CCIE #20847
Re:Cisco should be careful (Score:3, Informative)
Other than France? Yes. It's just a matter of practicality. English is simply the most widespread language in the world. If there is a non-native language used by the most people, it would be English. A lot of technical manuals are written in English or are available in English. Code comments are often in English, even when worked on by non-native English programmers. If a non-English company is trying to be more international, their best return would be translating their documentation into English. It's sort of a network effect here akin to how the world coalesced around TCP/IP, even for networks that don't connect to the Internet. If there is one set of protocol you want to support for your networking or networked product, it would be TCP/IP. Likewise for English.
Re:What about other certs? (Score:3, Informative)
Did it change? When I was there (2002) they had just transitioned to a a one-day exam format that consisted of configuring a number of routers (8) with a crapton of different technologies. The primary network was frame-relay with OSPF. On top of that there was an isdn dial backup site, an Atm point-to-point link (and you had to configure the PVC in the atm switch) a Token ring switch I never did manage to get right, and Cat 6x Ethernet switches. I had to configure a single voip station and some SNA transport. The IPX was fairly minimal, assigning IPX addresses and something with SAP.
On top of the physical technologies there was OSPF across the core network plus rip, eigrp, igrp, and BGP redistributed a half-dozen different ways.
All in 8 hours.
That was a long day.
-ellie