Strategies for Reading Through Exam Questions?

bender_fender100

I decided to go through learning mode on two of the Boson exams today and I'm noticing a common trend with what I keep missing on these exams when I do it that way. I'm already learning a lot from just reading through the explanations and taking notes on them.

Another observation I've already made is that on the second exam, with just getting three more questions right on that part, I would have gotten a passing score, so I'm coming to the conclusion that on the real exam, I need to somehow get just a few more questions right and I'll pass, but after going through those exams, there are several questions that I missed either because I didn't read the question carefully enough or I made some kind of mistake in not knowing what the question specifically wanted or I immediately jumped to the conclusion that a particular answer would go with this question, and this has also affected my IPv4 score in there too.

One example of this happened when I was working out the problem where it asks to assign subnets to different areas like marketing, administration, etc, and I completely didn't see that the very top part of the diagram is supposed to be a point to point connection and assumed that this was like a VLSM example but was able to identify all the other parts just fine. With this test being timed, finishing before the time ends is important to me but I don't want to go so fast that I miss a question just because I misread what it was asking. The one switching example came across that I got completely wrong was when it was asking me to point out what the source MAC address would be and I could clearly see that there was an entry in the table for that specific interface and that it would go out that port, so I chose that answer and got it wrong because I didn't take note of the other entry in the table with the same outgoing interface and didn't even know that would actually be the MAC address instead of what I was looking at.

I hate how this is really the biggest reason why I keep having these shortcomings, but a valuable lesson to be learned nonetheless in being precise with Cisco questions. I kinda know where to go from here and I want to do some thorough rereading on some of these chapters. It's odd to me how in the first exam, I did better on the LAN switching technology questions in than in the second where I got a similar result to what I made on my second attempt of the exam. I'm going to go through the third practice exam tomorrow and do the same thing and see what's going on there. In both sections, I did pretty well on troubleshooting and better than my actual score on both CCENT attempts. I'm mainly writing this post because it has been said that being able to explain these concepts and teaching them to others will in turn help me remember them a lot more than just going through videos and books on my own without having anyone else to talk to about what I've learned.

TallDude7

it seems like you need help to grasp the concepts. Did you try the CBT videos? He explains everything very well. You IP Services score was really low. know what NAT, PAT, DNS, ARP, DHCP, and ip-helper do

bender_fender100

TallDude7 wrote: »

it seems like you need help to grasp the concepts. Did you try the CBT videos? He explains everything very well. You IP Services score was really low. know what NAT, PAT, DNS, ARP, DHCP, and ip-helper do

I used those at the very beginning, but I haven't watched them since August and that was my first introduction to all of these concepts. I went through all of them once and that was it and went from there. I used other providers after that on Udemy which I paid for. I have been doing my reading as well, I just need a better way to retain the information. I take as many notes as I can and draw out the pictures when I can.

With NAT itself, it's not anything like dynamic NAT or NAT overload that I don't understand, but more about remembering what inside local, inside global, outside global and outside local mean and I know those should be really easy points to get on the exam, but seeing those on an exam question makes me trip up especially when I have to look at some kind of topology or diagram to go along with that question or it ends up being some weird drag and drop question. I should have let my nerves settle some more before clicking start on the exam.

I don't normally use flash cards by the way but I'll see if those will help.

Yanio

As far as reading the questions goes, I've always found it helpful to read it through at least twice and try to form the general gist of the answer before I even look at the Multi-choice answers. If my 'guess' doesn't relate to any of the suggested answers then I know I'm off the mark and need to look closer at the question.

bender_fender100

Yanio wrote: »

As far as reading the questions goes, I've always found it helpful to read it through at least twice and try to form the general gist of the answer before I even look at the Multi-choice answers. If my 'guess' doesn't relate to any of the suggested answers then I know I'm off the mark and need to look closer at the question.

I had just been thinking about that yesterday when I was figuring out some ideas of my own. I know how to configure devices and looking at their output to see what the problem is, but when it comes to the other questions on the test and how they like to throw in answers that are really similar to one another, that's when it starts getting tougher for me even if I do already know about the concept. The even more difficult part is that a 775 is like getting a 78% on one of their exams. I understand why Cisco certifications can be so valuable and in a way, I'm glad they make the tests like this, but also wish they could make some of the questions a bit clearer.

I'm still not too far off from passing but I'm going to now try using flash cards so I get those IP service terms that I keep missing on the practice tests right because IP services and getting a 100% on that part, which is literally just a lot of vocabulary terms that I can get committed to my memory more, and IPv4 addressing could mean a lot of easy extra points that can significantly boost my score as I saw with the practice exams and on the exam and take a little bit more time on the questions and writing down what I think the answer is or what the answer is related to before trying to look at the choices. Depending on how many questions from each category they will use next on the test, I can even not do as well on one section, but do a lot better on the others and still pass. That should cut down on some of the careless mistakes I keep making. For some of the more abstract concepts I'm still trying to have a more in depth understanding of, I guess it wouldn't hurt me to go back and study some of the CBT Nuggets videos in addition, and then some of Chris Bryant's video again. My finance professor from over the summer always liked to emphasize the importance of repetition in learning difficult concepts and trying to memorize the whole way of writing out a cash flow statement or the balance sheet. He always liked to say that everyone needed to get so good at just knowing what they are without having to think much about it and even went as far as to say that if he were to call people at 3 am that they need to be able to quickly tell him not only how they work but what the exact order of them is.