Pass the LPIC 1 Exam

January 29th, 2011

The LPIC is probably the most well know Linux World certification, with many certified professionals around the world. It was created by the Linux Professional Instituto, LPI, that’s where the certification name comes from. It contains 3 levels of knowledge that can be divided in Junior (LPIC1), Intermediate (LPIC2) and Senior (LPIC3). My motivation in creating the article was the total lack of coherence on the tips, tutorials, and resources to study with emphasis on this certification found on the Internet.

I hope this article get expose all the monitoring, tips, guides and support material for studying the entire syllabus of the fullest extent necessary for the execution of this certification.

The Institute

LPI was formally incorporated as a non-profit organization in New Brunswick, Canada on October 25, 1999. It has operational offices in Toronto, Canada and Sacramento, USA — with affiliates around the world. LPI brings together an active and committed community of companies, IT professionals, training organizations and volunteers to achieve LPI’s programs. LPI is recognized worldwide as the premier organization advocating and assisting in the professional use of Linux, Open Source, and Free Software.

LPI’s industry standard certifications are delivered in thousands of locations worldwide, in multiple languages and with the support of employers, vendors, and trainers.

 

Where to Start

First of all the candidate must access the LPI Website and fullfill the membership form. This registration in very important because it contains the access data (user and password), contact data (Full name, address, postal code, etc) to where the certificate are sent when the candidate is approved.

At the and of the registration the candidate receives an ID, the LPID. Without this ID the candidate can’t schedule the exam at the partner’s site, so you must keep it, and it’s password, well.

 

Where to take the exam

The LPI exams can be taken at authorized center, VUE or Prometric. To take the exam the candidate must fullfill the online subscription form at the authorized center’s website, where the candidate chooses his/her username/password and fullfill the LPID to which the schedulled exams will associated with. After the registration the candidate must choose the time and place to take the exam. Both VUE and Prometric websites has a search tool you can use to search for the nearest authorized center.

 

About the Exam

The LPIC 1 certification is made of two exams, 101 and 102, each one has it’s own syllabus. To obtain the title of Linux Professional Institute Certified (LPIC), you must pass in both. Each exam (101 and 102), the date this post, costs USD$ 173,00 paid in international credit card through Prometric or Vue website in the time of the exam time/date schedule.

Each exam has the duration of 2h with no time extension and the passing score is 65%.

The LPI certification, despite of level, has a 5 years validity, this means that it must be re-taken each five years. However the LPIC validity is seen based on the last level validity, this means that if you’ve certified in LPIC 1 4 years ago, for example, and now you got certified in LPIC 2, the validity date of your first LPIC 1 gets the same date of LPIC 2 validity, and so on for the further levels.

 

The Exam

The exam is formed of 60 multiple choice questions divided in 44 knowledge areas, each one with it’s own weight. There are no exact number of questions per knowledge are. The weight of each knowledge area will give the total grade in the exam. The LPIC exam passing score is 65%, and the ponctuation goes from 200 to 800, the absolute passing score is 500.

You will face 3 types of multiple choice questions:

1. One Correct Choice: In the exam this option is marked with a radio button (
   Opção)
2. One or more correct answers: This option is marked with a check box button (
   Opção). The question will inform if it has one or more correct answers. Apart from the number of correct answers, if one wrong answer is marked, the whole question is considered to be wrong.
3. Text Box to be filled: No In the exam you have to fill a text box, for example, with a command name that does what the question is asking. You must be very carefull with this type of question, generally the questions ask ONLY for the command name, nothing more, if there is some space before or after the command, the questions is considered to be wrong. You must remember that as Linux Systems, the exam is also case sensitive, so commands in the wrong Caption will be considered wrong.

 

Syllabus

The LPI syllabus, as already said, is divided in 44 knowledge areas and it’ s full description can be found here:

Exam 101
Detailed Objectives
Example Questions
Exam 102
Detailed Objectives
Example Questions

 

Study Material

The first thing that you must have in mind is that the study resources are great, and can be found everywhere in the Internet, some are free and other comercial. Obviously for the beginner the best thing to do is to attend a good Linux course, however a good study book may give you the same results if the candidate is a self taught one.

The LPI, has recently, in 2009, updated and reorganized the content of all exams, so not all study materials are aligned with the official syllabus, free or commercial. The LPI exam new version contains much more material and knowledge areas, link Graphic Managers, Xorg, and the syllabus was re arranged throughout exams 101 and 102. So i recommend that the candidate don’ t attach himself to just one book. Try to prepare with many books, as much as possible.

The LPI web site suggests some study material linke books, courses, sites, already published in 2009 or later, and also other resources like books, that might not be aligned with the actual syllabus but yet valid as a study resource.

Here are 3 books that really helped me study for the exam. They can be acquired at any famous site like Amazon, O’Reilly and so:

Another very good free study resource are the IBM LPI Preparation Guides, they can be found at IBM LPIC Documentation Site. They are very good indeed and are totally aligned with the new syllabus and really focus on the exam. At IBM site you can find study materials for all LPI levels.

 

Mind Maps

For those who don’t know, or know just a little bit, mind maps are diagrams built and used for information management, knowledge and issue comprehension. They are extensivelly used as a support study material .

Many cientific studies prove it’s usage efficacy on study. Nowadays, there are many available lpic study oriented mind maps on the Internet, a great site to look for them is Certificação Linux, where they can be downloaded for free just by fullfilling their form with your name and e-mail address, and their are already up to date with the new certification exam syllabus.

It’s always desirable to make your own mind maps, enphasizing the subjects you don’t know yet.

 

Simulations

Simulated tests are another very helpfull study resource. There are many companys that develop this kind of material like:

TestKing
Cramsession
BrainDumps
Pass4Sure
ActualTests
CertifyMe
ExamWorx

All simulations above can be bought in their respective sites. Generally they are presented as a PDF doc, which makes your study a little bit harde as the answers are right below the question.

The simulations can be easily downloaded from the Internet in many famous site, the most famous one is Exam Collection. The downloadable files are in .VCE format that can be open using a very good software called Visual Cert Exam Suite that can be also downloaded at the Exam Collection Site or at the Developers Site.

The Visual Cert Exam Suite is the software used to create simulations, tests, exams, and so on. With this software you can simulation a real exam situation, with any number of questions, with any time period you want. The candidate can even mark questions to review later, as in the LPIC exam. The software can also show the questions’s answers.

I’ve posted some photos of Visual Cert Exam Suite below:

I suggest to all candidates that instead of doing a real simulation, with real time and number of questions at the beginning, they do ALL the questions. This way the candidate can test their real knowledge and check the commands, configuration files and any knowledge area they are probably bad to study again.

Notice that due to the update and rearrangement of the syllabus throughout the exams in 2009, some simulations are outdated, in material and organization, so prioritize the download of files beyond 2009, and also the ones that have the best reviews.

OBS: The author of this post is not associated or makes marketing of Exam Collection, this site was listed here just because it’s a well known resource. I remember that download of this type of material is strictly against the law, and is considered piracy. The author of this post doesn’t offer any guarantee related to this files. Use it at your own risk.

Study Hints

Obviously each candidate has his own way to study. The below hints are the ones that helped me in my way through the LPIC exam:

• Try not to study more then 5 hours a day, mainly if you work too. A tired mind, by hours of study, is much less usefull than a healthy mind for studing the proper time;
• Prepare a written resume of any technology, command, argument that you don’t know, with syntax, argument, command/argument objective. This can help you do a much faster review at the and of your studies, not needing the book t make it;
• Try to organize your study sessions in Theoretic study, Practical Study (command labs, etc) and at the end of the day a simulation session with 60 to 120 questions;
• Try not to know the questions by heart, but understand that, even when you know it’s nearly impossible not to know that by heart due to constant repetition;
• A good way to study by simulations is to execute the questions in a random way through the simulation application, this helps you visualize all the questions (some may reach more than 1000 questions) in a sorted way;

I hope this post can help you pass this certification.

Wait for my LPIC2 and LPIC3 posts in a little while.

Author: Felipe Martins