Failed SWITCH

azaghul

Failed on the 1st attempt, not for not knowing the material, but the quality of the flash based sim.

It shouldn't break the NDA, but my advice is get the config commands right the first time...the is NO guarantee that you can backout with the "no" form of the command...use "show" often to be sure what you typed was entered...there seems no way to clear the sim (or part thereof) and start over...I know I failed because of the one sim, I just had to hit next and move on with 25 questions remaining knowing I'd failed

That little rant over...the sim expectations were fair and reasonable, and were things you'd expect to configure (though sometime not outside a lab)...and no real gotcha questions that were at the margins of the syllabus. Just the ability to config a sim vs physical hardware are way different.

All that said, I now know what to expect next time when I'll pass!

As the wise men once said..."Always look on the bright side of life...":D

Terabyte

Did you take route first and what study materials are you using? I'm sure you'll get it the second time

koz24

Bummer, sorry to hear that. I also had an issue with "no" on the SWITCH exam.

azaghul

Terabyte wrote: »

Did you take route first and what study materials are you using? I'm sure you'll get it the second time

• For written materials I started with the OCG, but found the FLG much better, also used SWITCH Simplified, How to Master and for final review the CCNPGuide.
• On the video side I used INE's CCNA series for basic review of all the low level switching you don't think about on a daily basis then INE's SWITCH series, IPExperts SWITCH series and the CBTNuggets lab series. Did look at the stuff Jeremy does for SWITCH, but found it so lacking in any meaningful detail to be worthless, they are really dropping the ball on quallity. You just can't explain a topic in 15mins or less in any detail, even at the speed Jeremy speaks.
• On the Lab side, found Cisco's lab manual just painful the way it holds your hand for every step. Much preferred the INE approach of "here is what we want, here is our config when you're done". And physical over virtual wins hands down...am using Unetlab as my virtual platform of choice, but found vIOS and IOU have too many bugs/quirks...vIOS produces CPU HOG alerts and freezes the image, while in IOU I was labing HSRP and getting 2 "active" nodes with "standby" nodes unknown, but change it to VRRP and it works fine...just frustrating.
• On exam sims, the Cisco ones are ok, the INE ones are much better...though only being able to do the full 50 question exam bank is painful, sometime you only have time for less or you want to be tested on 1 subject area only, not all topics.

Have not done ROUTE yet, thats next...well next after SWITCH is done.

koz24

Azaghul, check out 101 Labs for CCNP. It is by the same Simplified authors. Great workbook.

theodoxa

I had the same problem (made a typo and couldn't undo it using the "no" command) on SWITCH. Fortunately, it didn't cause me to fail, but I did end up with a 50% on that section of the exam. Cisco really needs to fix their sims.