This exam… this exam was definitely one of the hardest exams I have taken so far.

After I was done with my LPIC-1/CompTIA Linux+ I decided that it would only make sense to also get LPIC-2 done! Since LPIC-1 was relatively easy I instantly jumped to the conclusion that LPIC-2 will also be near the same level.

However, I was so… very wrong. The first time I went to take the exam, I studied for a couple of weeks from the acloud.guru course on LPIC-2 by Nick Triantafillou, skimmed through the LPIC-2 Study Guide Second Edition by Christine Bresnahan and Richard Blum and did some practice questions and believed that would be enough. But, when I went to take the exam, it was like I never studied at all. It was almost as if I studied for the wrong exam. And so rightfully I failed with a score of 460 (500 required to pass).

After I came home, I took rest for the day, I wasn’t exactly sad or regretful, it was almost as if I expected the outcome (which might have been why I failed).

After this experience I understood the LPIC-2 exam a little. It was set up in a way that, so you would first take the LPIC-1/CompTIA Linux+ get a job (get experience), then go tackle the LPIC-2 for further advancement. But I had no practical experience and the focus of the LPIC-2 was questions that simulated real life scenarios in Linux. 

However, without experience I had not seen these real life scenarios. To match that I had to full into the depth with linux, grasp all the concepts, study these scenarios and memorize filenames/paths. My main resource for this was LPIC-2 Study Guide Second Edition by Christine Bresnahan and Richard Blum. One thing I learn from taking LPIC-1/CompTIA Linux+ and the LPIC-2 Exam 1 was that books allow you to learn how to use Linux, the background, history and online course (mainly acloud.guru) will teach you how to pass the exam. And it is important to use them properly.

So once I started to study for this exam again, I decide to take detailed notes, annotating every other sentence, really squeezing as much information as I can from the LPIC-2 Study Guide. My technique was to take notes from the main chapters and take the quizzes at the end at first for like 1.5 months. After I was done with all the chapters for first exam, I did the practical section from each chapter (or you can do the acloudguru course, which is great for practical). I then began the review by taking notes from Summary and Exam Essentials, this is mainly to really refresh my memory for the exam and get an overview, which took about 3 days. I then wrote down important filenames and port numbers to memorize and took practice tests and reviewed them (which is really helpful for this exam). Finally, I booked the exam for tomorrow and passed with a score of 500 (right on the edge)!