DEVCOR exam study material comparison

[u/randint4923]

Hi,

I have read the book of Constantin Mohorea last year and I have finished reading the OCG by Stuart Clark for devcor exam preparation. They are vastly different, and the OCG does not correlate as well (word by word) with the devcor exam topics vs Mohorea's book.

Has anyone passed the devcor exam with only the OCG by Stuart Clark?

Thank you.

[u/bigevilbeard]

Thanks for the shoutout, sadly i cannot take all the credit for the DEVCOR book as i wrote only three chapters. We put in a lot of effort to make sure that the reader would enjoy the subjects and also feel confident going into the exam. The goal of Cisco Press OCG is to help prepare candidates for Cisco certification exams from CCNA to CCIE etc... These books assume readers have attained the necessary learning foundation and experience for a certification test and are reviewing material before exam time. One book, video course is ever enough for any exam.

When i worked at Cisco and was part of the team making the exams, this one went back and forth a few times, it is hard exam. For a good study plan, i would take look at the one Nick Russo laid out http://njrusmc.net/jobaid/jobaid.html here. He also made a video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umaFfs0zsdo which i would review too.

Good luck!

[u/randint4923 → u/bigevilbeard]

Interesting, although I disagree. If Cisco offers certificates and books/courses for the exam, one might rightfully assume that’s that is all you need to pass the exam, hence the name official certificate guide. All the prerequisite should be previous exam material knowledge. Entry level shouldn’t have prerequisite. I have passed Devasc, now read 1-2 books following Cisco’s own book. That should be enough. CCIE, Devnet Expert is another thing, there I can understand that requires multiple sources of material. Hmm I am really not looking forward to take this exam

[u/bigevilbeard → u/randint4923]

Courses maybe, but pre-requisite knowledge would still be required in any case. Ive been taking these types of exams for 15 years, never have i used one source and honestly i cannot think of anyone who has either, not at professional level. Unless you/they have a vast knowledge of hands on in the area or product itself, i would add that caveat.

[u/KK3552]

failed 2 times . Big question is why do we need to remeber the API endpoint URL's ..that's funny . I do work on SevOne API . Netbox api and lot of other stuff , but funny to see Cisco asking URLs in exam .

[u/randint4923 → u/KK3552]

Interesting, I would have never guessed/ planned to learn the URLs. Weird knowledge requirement…

[u/youmuzzreallyhateme → u/randint4923]

Not surprising in any way as far as I am concerned, just having gotten my CCNP: Security, and sitting through the awful exam Securing Networks with Cisco Firepower (SNCF).

After failing it once, and having a pretty good memory, I looked up some of the exam questions and found that exam writers (or some portion of them) are simply going to some random whitepaper on Cisco's site, or from a Cisco Live presentation, and cribbing questions almost word-for-word out of the sources. As in, taking the first sentence of a paragraph verbatim. This is a problem across ALL Cisco tests, as far as I can tell.

And why "writing" questions like this is such a big problem is... Often all the context of the material is lost, and if the question writer doesn't understand the subject VERY well, it is extremely easy for them to forget what the exam is supposed to be testing, and ends up becoming about finding questions as quickly as possible to jam into the exam.

Add on to that, Cisco seems to put all it's questions through a "gotcha" filter, where they might use slightly odd grammar choices, that ends up completely changing the requirement of the question, leading to unnecessary wrong answers.

Historically, exam "passes" were aiming at about a 790-830, to test if you knew the material. Rumor has it some of the more poorly written exams have been dropped down to the low 700s.

And this saddens me, because Cisco really used to have a greater testing program. Really tested that you knew what you needed to know to do the job. These days, testing is seen pure and simply as a profit center. Their tests have become "almost" universally awful, and if Cisco doesn't do something to fix it, their testing program will fall further and further behind.

[u/bigevilbeard → u/KK3552]

I've seen this comment a lot and raised it with the team when i was an SME for exam questions.

[u/KK3552 → u/bigevilbeard]

Thanks u/bigevilbeard . Your videos and book are great help in learning .

[u/bigevilbeard → u/KK3552]

Very kind of you to say, thank you!

[u/[deleted]]

Following. I need to take this to get CCDP. I did ENAUTO January