CCNA Exam - Tips?

Kona*

Kona*

Kona*

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Hey :)

I have my CCNA Exam in a couple of days and I was just wondering if you lot have any tips? I have been revising hard and I have been doing practice tests, I've also exhausted all the material on the cisco learning network site. I have ran out of things to revise so I have turned to you lot! :)

Cheers,

Craig
 
General advice rather than specific for the CCNA, but with all these things the important thing is not to just memorise the facts - you need to understand it and be able to use the skills in real world situations.

Remember how a certain exam might expect you to answer a question (a Microsoft answer to a network problem will be different from a Cisco answer, both might be valid but only one will be the correct answer...)

Most importantly, stay calm, dont rush and check your answers. If you're stuck on a question, mark it for review and move on..

Good luck!
 
yeah the review feature didnt seem to be available on the exam i took the other week...it's a real pita because if you get a tricky question worth a lot of points early on you can easily waste time...i managed to get through it, and i passed, but i was starting to be pressed for time towards the end. i will echo what others have said above, don't just learn the facts, make sure you actually understand it, since the scenarios they put you in can be quite tricky sometimes! good luck, let us know how you get on! :)
 
Thanks for the advice chaps.

The passing score was 825/1000 and I scored 846/1000 :D I only "just" passed, but a pass is a pass I guess!

Quick breakdown of my exam:

Describe how a network works: 100%
Configure, verify and troubleshoot a switch with VLAns and interswitch communications: 75%
Implement an IP addressing scheme and IP Services to meet network requirements in a medium sized enterprise: 66%
Configure, verify, and troubleshoot basic router operation and routing on Cisco devices: 92%
Explain and select the appropriate administrative tasks required for a WLAN: 100%
Identify security threads to a network and describe general methods to mitigate those threats: 100%
Implement, verify and troubleshoot NAT and ACLs in a medium sized Enterprise branch office: 50%
Implement and verify WAN links: 25% (Frame Relay is my downfall here, does anyone actually use Frame Relay these days?)
 
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iaind said:
Congratulation!

What's next - CCIE?
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Heh, I think CCIE will be a while off yet - It took a lot of work to get my CCNA course & exam paid for through my employer as we don't have any employee training schemes or budgets. It's a shame really, I didn't know diddly squat about networks until July last year (when I done my ICND1 course, ICND2 was in September) and I am thorougly enjoying it even know I find some of it pretty complex.

The certification has just been verified by Pearson Vue too, so it's really official that I have passed now. For those of you that don't know, Cisco now vet every exam for inconsistencies to make sure you haven't cheated!
 
Congrats. What revision material did you use? I could do with starting to look into getting this qualification so if you have any material going spare I would be most grateful.




M.
 
teaboy5 said:
Was this writen?
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It's not a written exam no, its a mixture of multi choice and simlets/simulations. Cisco have a demo of what the exam looks like here: http://www.cisco.com/comm/applicati...Vue_CCNATutorial_Tlt_Sim_simlet_v4_010505.swf

m4cc45 said:
Congrats. What revision material did you use? I could do with starting to look into getting this qualification so if you have any material going spare I would be most grateful.
Click to expand...

I completed the ICND1 course in July 08 and the ICND2 course in September 08, they were both really good and you could easily take the separate ICND1 and ICND2 exams after each course and pass them IMHO. I didn't get this opportunity due to funding from work so I purchased the "CCNA Official Exam Certification Library" to refresh my memory a couple of months before my exam.

Two bits of advice I can give are that you really do need to know your stuff, not just the facts. Also you really do need to be able to work out subnets/wildcard masks really fast as the first half of my test was pretty much all working out subnets and access control lists. I found this hard at first as my math skills are poor but there are several ways to work this out on paper with ease and your allowed a dry marker + whiteboard in the exam room which helps!
 
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