Can't believe I failed

Wow. I am shocked.
I got 790. I have read the entire Sybex Todd Lammle Book, i've taken class at a cisco academy, i have a ccna simulator at home. I did more than 700 questions to practice, i always got around the 90s at my practice tests, but i just failed the exam.

It really is harder than what the practice tests offer. I did a few comptia and microsoft tests before but it has nothing to do with cisco tests.

I'm going to restart and study from zero.

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Comments

wildfire

Sorry to hear you failed, dont be too down on yourself its a hard exam with a high passing mark (850) you werent that far away so I dont see the need to start from scratch.

at the end of the exam you should have a feedback thing that tells you how you performed in each area, use this to go away and focus on where your weakness areas lie!

mikej412

No! Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get right back on that horse (and for the sake of argument, we will name the Horse Cisco CCNA exam).

And welcome to the wonderful world of Cisco tricky exam questions.

I still remember doing at least 8 double-takes

during my CCNA exam. The questions are written to make you think. Don't just jump at the first answer you think is right. You have to read the question, then read the answers, then read the question again to make sure you didn't miss a word that changes the whole meaning of the question. And then still don't jump at the "obvious" correct answer. Evaluate each answer as to why it right or wrong.

Review your weak areas from your grade report and study those areas again -- but don't start all over.

How do you think you did on the sims? Did you have subnetting down or a killer **** sheet that you wrote out on your scrach paper/white board during the test demo?

was55amg

thanks guys! i really appreciate!
Well i have no problems with subnets, the main problem of the exam for me was time. imagine, i did the last 17 questions in 18 min!!! i didn't see the time go so fast!!

For the Sims, here is one that i remember (i had only 2):

about the sim with the vtp domain. i found it really ambiguous. There was 2 switches, one for building 100 and one 210. You had to configure the switch of building 210. The 100 was the server. you had to configure the 210 as a client, with an ip address to vlan1 and a default gateway. I did it, and all the pings worked.

The 100 addresses were:
Vlan1: 192.168.166.65 with a subnet of 255.255.255.224
Default-Gateway: 192.168.166.66

So i did 256-224 = 32

So you had as networks: 32 64 96 and so on.

So for the switch of building 210, i set the vlan1 ip to: 192.168.166.97
the default-gateway to 192.168.166.98

Is it the good way to look at it?

jsond

was55amg wrote:

thanks guys! i really appreciate!
Well i have no problems with subnets, the main problem of the exam for me was time. imagine, i did the last 17 questions in 18 min!!! i didn't see the time go so fast!!

I think you are correct on the VTP lab but wait for other responses to know for sure.

I failed the CCNA ICND the 1st time and had the exact same problem. I had 40 questions and at the halfway point I had only answered 13 questions. One of them was the lab but I still was way behind. Like you, the last 15 or so questions I had no choice but to just answer with the 1st answer I felt was right and no time to look at the other answers to make sure. Got an 820 but took it 3 weeks later and got a 910. I think if you got a 790 there is no need to start from scratch. I am sure you know which topics you felt you did not have an indepth knowledge on as much as you needed to pass ( for me it was switching/vlan/stp questions). You at least now know the format of the exam and what you are up against. I would say take another 2-4 weeks of studying, focusing mainly on topics you may need a little more in depth knowledge on, and try again...good luck!

mikeyoung

Actually that IP and subnet setup you stated is only going to give you two networks:
Network add. |Usable Hosts | broadcast address
192.168.166.0 192.168.166.1 to 192.168.166.126 192.168.166.127
192.168.166.128 192.168.166.129 to 192.168.166.254 192.168.166.255

I think, but I am not sure about this, that the pings worked because, really, all of your IPs were on the same network and they don't really care about default gateways. As for the 2nd building. Just because you tell the switch a certain IP is the default gateway, doesn't necessarily mean that is. And I am not sure how that really worked out for you.

But it is early and I have only had one cup of coffee, so maybe someone else can correct any errors or shed more light on it.

The really important thing is that you MUST NOT give up. You now have a huge advantage, having seen the test. I know when I took it the 2nd time, I just felt more confident as soon as I sat down because I had seen it the first time... when I failed.

So brush up on your weak areas, practice some more on your sim, espicially VLANs and configuring the routing protocols and GET BACK IN THERE! YOU can do it!!!

Good luck,

Mike

my_id_0308

Great advice from Mikeyoung

All the best in your next ccna exam..

You are very close so brush up on weak areas.

Currently doin my revision for my second ty!!!So do your best OK!!!

was55amg

Thanks again guys!

mikeyoung thanks for your advice. For the pings, maybe i don't remember the ip addresses I assigned because the pings did work.

Are the sims questions more important than the others? if you skip them, do you lose a lot of points?

Also, at the beginning of the test, there was a turorial and a feedback to form. If you skip it, do you lose points?

Thanks! I think i'll take it friday, i'm working on it again, thanks all!

jmc724

yup the sims are heaft 100-200 points.

Gogousa

Maybe I'm missing something or my head is just not working, but why did you set the VLAN1 on the second switch to a different subnet than the VLAN1 of the first switch?

my_id_0308

Also, at the beginning of the test, there was a turorial and a feedback to form. If you skip it, do you lose points?

Thanks! I think i'll take it friday, i'm working on it again, thanks all!

Nope,you won't.

Good luck on Friday.