boson's tshoot simulator...

119 bucks... is it worth it...

that depends on you... it certainly helps you, you have to give it that... it can't hurt either but it cuts you off at the knees in a lot of areas, especially if you are practicing for speed... yes speed... unfortunately speed is a factor in this thing...

where it helps:

anything that forces you to train, helps... yes virginia, this is training and training is not always fun so suck it up...

you get better simply by forcing yourself to pinpoint problems...

you get better by determining solutions to said pinpointed problems using a limited command set...

where it sucks:

in the limited command set specifically...

no tracert from the pc...

no interface trunk... that's a big one... that is my go to command at l2...

no piping... another big time saver...

you end up using show run an awful lot, which isn't troubleshooting... show run is hunting and pecking... show run does not help you... 

but at least if they are going to make you rely on show run, make available show run interface... no show run interface...

face it, it's not real troubleshooting, it's a flash script... which makes me wary of the troubleshoot section in the ccie lab... if they (cisco) are going to use flash scripts for such an important test, they had better issue the limited command set that is supported on the test to the public ahead of time... anything less is dirty pool...

i cannot imagine sitting the ccie lab without benefit of piping... especially with the troubleshoot section which basically gives you ten minutes a ticket... gimme a friggin break here...