The CCIE Lab Exam Has a New Twist

At the time of this writing, the CCIE Lab Exam for the Route/Switch track has a new twist. There are four to five short answer questions a student must respond to prior to beginning the “traditional” configuration portion. Here is a list of facts and information I have compiled for this new section per the information that Cisco has released. Enjoy… * You must complete this portion of the exam before you start the traditional configuration portion. * You have a total of 30 minutes to complete this section, you may finish early if you like and immediately begin your configuration section. * You will receive 4 questions via the computer and you must provide short answers using the computer interface. The questions are not oral in nature. Typical responses require 4 to 5 words at most. * Spelling and/or grammar does not count against you. * The questions are manually graded by a proctor. If you purchase an exam re-read, they will re-grade your question responses. * You may not return to the short answer questions once you have begun the configuration portion of the lab exam. * You will not receive a score when you complete this section, but you must pass this portion to pass the CCIE. You will receive your score in the open-ended section if you fail the exam. The score is reported as 0% or 100% (pass or fail). You may only miss one question in the section in order to pass. * Most students finish the 4 to 5 questions in approximately 12 minutes. * The configuration portion of the exam has been reduced to accommodate this initial 30 minutes. * You still have a total of 8 hours that makeup the open-ended questions and the configuration portion. * You may not access the DOC-CD to answer these questions.