1. Drink a lot the night before and show up still drunk, or not at all!

Ok, what I really mean is tips on how to handle yourself if you have failed the exam. We all want to go in, take the exam, pass it on our first try, and move on. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. Personally, I've had runs where I've cleared exams easily on the first shot, and other times where it's taken more than two attempts. Here are some tips for what to do during and after the exam.

As a reminder, you cannot take anything physical into or out of the exam room; don't share test questions or specifics with others, do not violate testing procedures.

Step 1. Give yourself time to get to and to take the exam. If you have work or personal commitments, let them know it's going to be at least the maximum stated exam time, plus 30 minutes. Remind them that you're out of contact this whole time period. Turn your phone OFF before you leave it in the car/locker/whatever.

Step 2. During your exam, make simple one or two word notes on your erasable board as you encounter topics you think you may have had a problem with. Never heard of a DLCI before? Better write that down. Didn't realize DHCP was going to be on that one? Right it down.

Step 3. You've gotten to the score report page. You failed. It sucks but compose yourself, because you're not done yet. Take 30 seconds to pull yourself together. Now take a look at the notes you made before you stand up. Nobody is going to chase you out immediately. Figure out if you can distill your notes down into a few areas, maybe the top five things you believe were an issue. Repeat this to yourself, write it down again if you'd like, whatever you need to do to remember it for the next five minutes.

Step 4. Ok, stand up, head out of the testing room, leaving your written noted behind and go get your score report. Don't turn on the cell phone yet, don't sit and cheat with the person about how it sucks to miss the test, just politely pick up your score report, say thanks, and head out to your car or a place where you can sit quietly for a few.

Step 5. Write down your top five thing you've identified as weaknesses onto the back of the score report. You brought a pen with you, right? Then spend another five minutes or so writing down any other stuff that comes to your mind. If your company is on fire or someone is dying during this time period, you're presence really isn't going to make a difference, so follow through with this and get notes WRITTEN onto the paper. Remember this isn't a violation of testing policies because a) you didn't take any written material or notes out of the testing center, only the stuff in your mind and b) you aren't sharing this with anyone but yourself

Step 6. Ok, turn the phone on, check your email, drive to the bar, whatever. Make sure you keep your score report somewhere safe so you can start reviewing the notes tomorrow to get ready for your next attempt. Keep it or another piece of paper and a pen with you the rest of the day; there's a good chance you'll suddenly remember, "oh crap, there was also that question about HSRP tracking on the test and how it related to priorities, I'd better right that down to study too".

Step 7. Actually use the data you've collected to study. It's entirely possible that you might have either done fine on questions you thought you got wrong, or you might get entirely new questions next time. But it's not all that likely. While the individual questions will probably vary, you can bet that if you've identified areas you're weak in, some other questions in that topic are likely to show up as well.

Do this and you're going to greatly increase the effectiveness of your study and the chances of passing the next time around. Also, don't get discouraged. Sometimes it's better to take the test, fail, learn from it, and move on, compared to studying for weeks to try to get a perfect score. The cost of two attempts is greater than one, but it's far less than a bootcamp, tons of new books or video courses, or tens of hours of work or personal time studying when you don't have to. However, just taking the test over and over and over without learning from your prior attempts is pretty costly and wasteful.

Best of luck to everyone taking your exams. Hopefully you get to Step 3, get a pass, and you can run out of there and not care about the rest. Or do the rest anyway to study up to become a better engineer, not just a better certificate holder.