Failing Practice exams

jknight117

Long story short I have been studying since MArch till now. I have read Odom's ICND Official Cert Guide twice and Lammle Study guide once. I have been labing with real routers and switches as well with gns3. I practice subnetting questions weekly and got it down to a minute to two minutes per question.

Okay so I have been attempting to pass the Pearson IT practice exams however it seems I keep failing them till I have done them 3 - 4 times. The last practice exam I scored 711 for practice exam #2.

Anything wrong here? I am assuming I should be able to pass the Practice Exams in 1 shot before going for my CCENT.

Does anyone have any advice? Or what I might need to change?

Many thanks in advance for the advise.

omi2123

ICND1 is a huge book. it's very impossible to remember everything if u dont have any everyday production level experience. most of the questions will not be used in real life scenario. u just gotta practice it & each area that u fail, go back to the book & read that chapter all the way to adapt it pretty good. don't sweat it. the real test is lot easier than the practice test.

Jon_Cisco

It sounds like you are on the right track.

If you did not already work in networking there is a lot of new information to learn. I started studying in September of last year and only took the CCENT last month. While I could have passed it earlier I gave myself plenty of time so I would understand what I was learning. Once you understand the concepts the questions start to make better sense.

One thing that I recommend to everyone because I find it works great for me.
Keep a pen and paper with you when you take the practice exam. As you read the questions make a list of every question or answer that is unfamiliar to you.

After you take the test and review the answers go back and look up the topics that you picked out as your weak areas.
Also don't be to quick when reviewing your practice test. It's easy to gloss over the answers and say yeah I knew that. Take time and talk through why the answer they give you is right.

Good Luck!

mikeybinec

jknight117 wrote: »

Does anyone have any advice? Or what I might need to change? Many thanks in advance for the advise.

Pearson is somewhat OK.. but I would go with Boson. When you are scoring at least 900, then you're ready

no!all!

I'm currently studying for ICND 1 and I agree with a lot of people, there is definitely a lot to cover. Doing desktop support you don't really get any good networking experience. I've been studying since March and still have quite a ways to go before I will feel comfortable taking the exam. I've been getting about 65% on my practice exams, so I feel your pain there. Just keep studying is all I can say...good luck!

theodoxa

I never passed the Pearson practice tests - consistently close, but never quite a pass. I ended up going with the Boson ExSim-Max and scored --

Test A: 901
Test B: 944
Test C: 930

I passed the ICND1 with a 916 if I remember correctly.

I used Boson again for ICND2 and scored --

Test A: 938
Test B: 781
Test C: ??? (A close fail, but apparently didn't save the score)
Mixed: 1000

I made some stupid mistakes on those middle two and wasn't focused. There were also a few things I didn't realize. For example, a VTP Client can blow away the VLANs on a VTP Server if the Client has a higher revision number. This is explicitly stated in the CCNP: SWITCH OCG, but I did not realize that when I was doing CCNA.

I passed the ICND2 with a 912 if I remember correctly.

The Pearson practice tests were terrible. I missed a number of questions because I didn't understand what was being asked (poorly worded). They also, at least when I took it, only have multiple choice questions. The Boson ExSim-Max has all the same types of questions as the real thing (Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blank?, Simulation, Simlet, Testlet?, Drag and Drop). Boson's practice tests get progressively harder from Test A to Test C. The ICND1 Test C even covered some ICND2 material. The ICND2 Test C had some killer ACL Simulations that were ALOT harder [at least for me] than the real thing.

--chris--

Same boat here. Been really focusing on the ICND1 since March, read both Odom and Lammles book and I am about to finish all the Chris Bryant videos on Udemy. I feel somewhat confident.

I feel discouraged at times because this is an entry level exam and its taking me thing long to really get comfortable with it. Its been about 4 months of 10-15 hours a week reading/watching/labbing/subnetting and I still learn something new when I re-read the chapters or review sections. I cant wait until this summer when school ends and I can have 6 weeks to focus solely on this exam!

--chris--

theodoxa wrote: »

The Pearson practice tests were terrible. I missed a number of questions because I didn't understand what was being asked (poorly worded). They also, at least when I took it, only have multiple choice questions. The Boson ExSim-Max has all the same types of questions as the real thing (Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blank?, Simulation, Simlet, Testlet?, Drag and Drop). Boson's practice tests get progressively harder from Test A to Test C. The ICND1 Test C even covered some ICND2 material. The ICND2 Test C had some killer ACL Simulations that were ALOT harder [at least for me] than the real thing.

Great review of the practice tests/sims. I have been using the Pearson practice and I felt the questions were difficult. Now I am wondering if it isn't just poor wording?

xnx

I found some of the pearson questions to be terrible; nothing like the exam.