« Useful Utility: cut | Main | Review: iAudio M5 (day 1) »
LPIC prepping
By Jesse Morgan | February 16, 2006
I’ve been wanting to take a linux certification for some time now. It’s been a goal, but I don’t feel I’m ready. Lately I’ve been studying a lot, trying to prepare myself and took a few practice exams.
The first pre-exam I took was a Linux+ pre-test from skillsoft, which I got a 92% on, which made me fell pretty good.
The next one I took was an LPIC test out of the back of my LPIC Exam Cram book. The LPIC is generally considered to be much harder than the linux+ exam. I needed a 70% to pass, and only got a 62%. Most of the questions I missed were RPM related or x window related.
I’ve since studied those sections and continued to make my way through the exam cram book (I’m on page 207 of 487, reading at most 5 pages a day due to the sheer volume of information on each page).
Today I took a test off the CD that came with the book and got a 70.7%
I’m reviewing my answers now to see what needs to be improved, but this is exciting to me that had this been a real test, I would have passed.
I plan on putting a lot more work into it still, but it definately lets me know I’m learning something.
I highly reccommend the LPIC exam cram book btw if you’re planning on doing any work with linux. flip to a random page and you’ll learn a handful of things- it’s great.
Topics: Books, Linux, Open Source |
February 16th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
update- I just took the test again and got a bunch of different questions. I did much better with a 77.6%
February 16th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
You rock man! I have total faith in your ability to pass that exam. Once you pass you will have to give me the low down on the exam. I have eye balled that one, but for me, I don’t touch Linux on a daily basis and I think I would struggle with some of the more simple commands. You on the other hand are an all day Linux guy and this is going to be cake.
As someone who has taken a metric butt load of exams, keep taking the practice exams over and over until they become like second nature to you. The ones you got wrong don’t just see what the right answer was, investigate to find out why it is the right answer. At least for me, the actual exam is a bit nerve racking. More than anything I hate to fail at anything and I don’t want people to know I failed a test. I think I have passed 16 exams so far, but I remember the one I failed over all the ones I passed!
February 17th, 2006 at 8:15 am
yup- that’s the plan. Whenever I finish a chapter in this book I take the practice exam. I’ve taken a couple full ones just to monitor my progress.
The thing that’s really gonna eat me are the obscure X window files and what they do, obscure flags for RPM and other utils, config settings for setserial, isapnp and ppp, IRQs and memory settings for devices, and other things I’ve either never done or rarely ever use.
I have no fear of failing the Linux+ test at this point, but the LPIC is another matter. Since it’s harder, I’m studying for it rather than the Linux+ test- the way I figure it, there is enough overlap that studying for the LPIC will help me with the Linux+.