RHCE exam tips

Well, they say life can get in our way while we try to study, and I can say it sure can. We are in week 22 of my journey. There were plenty of issues that came up, from the family being sick, to dealing with things at work, and just trying to get things done. In the end, I even had to reschedule my ex300 exam 3 different times due to winter storms. It took a great deal of effort to study for the RHCE exam, however, it finally came together in May of 2019. This article will cover some RHCE exam tips.

My first attempt at the RHCE

My first attempt at the RHCE happened on May 1st. The exam really threw me for a loop too, as I had gotten so used to the Red Hat labs that I made dumb mistakes. I forgot how to do basic things, at least for a few minutes. Just a number of things that slowed me down and shook me up at the same time.

I used up all 3.5 hours on that exam and had most of the tasks done, but there were some things I just couldn’t get to, or fully complete. The results came just a few hours later, and I did terribly. I think it was like 110 out of 300, not even 50%. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to pass right after I was done, however.

Figuring out what went wrong

So after being upset with myself and confused, I started working on a plan. Writing down as many of the tasks as I could remember from the exam helped in my further studies. Then looking up more information on my weak areas and looked at videos from Sander van Vugt and Linux Academy.

Finally purchasing the RHCE exam prep workshop from Sander van Vugt and watching it during the week. This workshop has many RHCE exam tips. It made me think of a few things that I did wrong.

RHCE Exam tips

• Try to just have fun, it’s stressful enough taking exams and if you go in stressed you’ll have a more difficult time troubleshooting under pressure than if you are relaxed.
• READ everything before you do one single thing. That’s all the startup notes, as well as every question. Take notes on your workstation of key points you want to refer back to frequently.
• Install all packages you need to install right away, and then set up the firewalls, and enable those services. You don’t need to start them yet, but once you start configuring and troubleshooting you may forget to enable that service.
• Reboot the server after you do each task, make sure you didn’t break something. If it doesn’t work, you know the last thing you did was what broke it. If you reboot after say 5 tasks, well then it will be difficult to know which task broke your server.
• Keep an eye out on your timer. If you are down to the last 5 or 10 minutes and still working on a complicated task, it might be better to just verify what you do have works correctly. My point here is when you hurry and try to make something work you could break that service so it won’t start up after rebooting, and won’t have the time to fix it in the end.
• For the study side of things, practice labs, and do various options and scenarios for all the objectives in the RHCE. Do them often enough that it’s possible you can just recall it all from memory.
• For commands that difficult to recall, locate where you can find configuration examples in man pages.

Final thoughts on the RHCE

With focused study, labs, and having a plan when taking the RHCE you should do well. Do not feel bad if you do not pass on your first time though. The RHCE is difficult, and many people take a number of times to finally pass it.

Use each time you take the exam as a learning experience. Focus your studies on where they showed you did badly and try and schedule the exam again as quickly as possible.