failing an exam

[NickH]

Here's. a tough topic. I failed an exam yesterday. Now, I know failure can be a valuable step on the road to success (coincidentally, same day, Sam Chillcott, an experience coach I met, posted this the same day: https://www.instagram.com/p/B1Yj9Eellri/). But it's still pretty hard to take. 

How about you?

Have you gone through this experience? 

How did you approach your retake?

Do you think you came out better?

[Razique]

Hey @NickH, sorry to hear that you did not pass your exam. It is never an easy thing to fail if you have spent a lot of time preparing for it.

I have failed myself the DO425 exam, ironically, I wrote a couple of chapters in this course. I knew if would be tought. I always find myself trying to manage my time, and tend to quickly lose confidence when I am not able to solve one of the objectives, as I am wondering how this will impact the rest.

I have learned to "time box" the tasks, for example, if I stumble for more than twenty minutes, I move on. I also failed the DO407 the first time, and I had a really low score. The second time, I passed with 100%, I succeeded because I decided to (again) take the course and make sure I would take the time to focus on all the little nuances.

And I think this is the other lesson for me - there are a lof of little subtleties in the ways exams work, whether about configuring a service using the right file, but also the right file name, etc. I think overall, I could always pay more attention and double check all the resources name, etc.

Psychologically, failure does not seem to affect me that much, perhpas because I know I will have another chance, and learning was just as pleasant :smileyhappy:

[Tracy_Baker]

I was reading some of the responses having to do with time management, and I thought I'd offer up something I did.

Again, dealing only with published objectives: There could be a number of times where it may ask you to configure a service, firewall, and other things.

I have an issue properly typing the command to configure the firewall.  I tend, more often that not, to leave out a letter. This, of course, leads to an error. It also leads to frustration because I have to fix the error.

I have been working in computer science for 41 years now; I'm older and my typing skills are beginning to noticably suffer due to age and repetitive stress injury.

All of this leads to wasted time. And, if it must be done repeatedly, even more frustration and more wasted time.

My solution was to take the time, after I reviewed the instructions and before I actually started completing the tasks, to create scripts to handle these repetitions (not just for the firewall but for other commands that may be repeated). This ensures that the command is executed correctly and allows for consistency (some of the very reasons we write scripts in the first place). I'd give them a one-letter name (e.g.: f to configure the firewall). I created them in a globally accessible location and made them executable. I won't post specifics here, but my scripts followed the same general format:

<perform the configuration> && <activate the configuration> && <verify the configuration>

Let's assume that the firewall needs to be (re)configured for seven services. Without my script, I'd have to type the firewall command a minimum of 21 times -- each time having a possibility of my mis-typing it, and then having to fix it. With my script, I simply type f --- it is hard to typo a single letter. Information is being passed to the script, as needed.

The scripts also help if I make a mistake when I'm configuring things. If I do, I can fix the mistake and re-run the script. Using the prior example, 21 times can easily become 24, 27, 30, ... times.

This method saved me a LOT of time.

[Razique]

This is some ninja tip there. I agree, it's easy to make those kind of mistakes. 

Creating shortcuts and aliases is a great way to make sure you can also focus on the "operation" rather than the tool itself.

Another related tip is that autocompletion can really help as well to better understand the options and positional arguments.

[Tracy_Baker]

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@Razique wrote:

Another related tip is that autocompletion can really help as well to better understand the options and positional arguments.

---

Absolutely -- autocompletion is a great way to keep from having to remember (and possibly confuse) options and arguments, prevent typos, and to verify if an object (file, directory, option, etc) even exists.

The only think I'd have to say about this is be careful! The current RHEL 7 RHCSA and RHCE use kernel version 7.0. If you are practicing on a later kernel version, things can be drastically different. 

Try tab completion with the nmcli command with kernel version 7.5 or later (maybe as far back as 7.3...)

[Nadeemali7141]

Hi.....i just failed in kiosk rhce examination i was well prepared but i got stuck in some questions that takes too much time and that are pretty much easy questions such as port forwarding iscsi teaming.............firstly I got stucked to find the virtual machines there was only a browser window that contained the instructions and questions after wasting my important time i take ssh to
the machines and start the exam.......i did not found the proctor on chat helpful he clearly refused for any help......at last I tried hard but not able to clear the exam.......can anyone help me for nfs and samba these are the questions that takes too much time after which it's not possible for me to clear the exam.

[Pranabesh]

Guys i want to purchase ex200 exam, i am self employed, which payment method should i choose. It showing po and prepay invoice option. Kindly help me with this, dont know where to seek help for this .