Finally, I passed. I feel so happy that two years of discontinuous study and a lot of frustration paid off. I deserve this nice recognition :) Now, I can tell that it takes a LOT of patience, focus and self confident to pass not only this exam, but the whole track. Why? because many guys fall in the trap of cramming questions in order to become CCNP fast. I began the CCNP journey in 2009. I only became CCNP in 2011! Some guys may tell me that I was not serious about my studies. But here are my arguments:

Two days are left before my TSHOOT exam. I feel confident about it since I have a first taste of it. I read feedback given by test takers that it is a a nice experience. I ought to be ready for both scenarios. If I succeed, then I know that all my limiting beliefs about CCNP were false. Then, I’ll know that I was prisoner of my false beliefs. And if I fail, then I should remind myself about all the courageous people in the IT world who spent a lot of money and time in the pursuit of their certs. Either way, I’ll learn something, and that’s my own choice. I made my choice to enhance my career, no matter what the sacrifices are. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear” - Mark Twain

I gathered these notes to mentally prepare my Troubleshooting methodology on the exam day:

• Follow the path
• divide and conquer
• Move the problem
• Bottom up
• Top down After watching Kevin Wallace Bull’s Eye videos and INE Tshoot Exam Demo video, the best method is to use a combination of Divide and Conquer-Bottom up/Top Down-Follow the path. There’s not really one single method that will lead to finding where the problem lies.

This is a collection of possible troubleshooting tips I collected over my studies. They are organized by OSI layer: