Cisco Mulls Adding Verbal Interview To CCIE Exams

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."

Comments

Cisco should be careful

[bugs2squash]

To avoid bias against people who don't speak English as their mother tongue.

Re:Cisco should be careful

[Comatose51]

Requiring English in tech isn't a bias. It's almost a de facto standard.

I think you're doing it wrong....

[phantomcircuit]

Something tells me that they're doing it wrong

Re:How did they fudge the practical lab?

[glitch23]

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 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.

What i'd like to know

[Shadow of Eternity]

is why the hell they don't let you use a calculator. My conversation with my (now utterly uncertified) instructor went about like this:

"In real life you won't always have a calculator"
"BS, we're working ON COMPUTERS"
"Well what if the batteries die?"
"Solar power, spare batteries, or I could use one of MY computers"
"And what if the power is out then, smart guy?"
"Well I guess I won't have very much to do if that happens while I'm working dialed into a router then, will I?"