Current Retake Policy?

Warpig

Can anyone confirm the current ICND1\ICND2\CCNA retake policy?

I have seen a few places where Cisco seems to state that a retake of a failed test can not be re-tested for 5 days starting the day AFTER you fail a test. or what they referenced as "The Following Monday". I have also seen other Cisco statements like copied/pasted below that state

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Retaking Exams

The policies for retaking exams are as follows:

Candidates who fail an exam must wait a period of fifteen (15) calendar days, beginning the day after the failed attempt, before they may retest for the same exam.
Once passed, a candidate must wait a minimum of 180 days before taking the same exam with an identical exam number.

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What I just read makes me a bit paranoid... I have been studying my 200-101 feverishly for the past month... I have not been gaining the confidence I have been hoping to as of yet. I had studied most of 200-101 around the time I passed my ICND1 and had it down pretty well then. I drifted away from it (big mistake on my part) but when I received my expiration notification from Cisco I jumped back on it figuring it would all come back easily like most stuff in the IT world does for me. Trouble is it is not coming back to me as easily as things usually do. I have been scoring in the 70-79% range with The Boson Ex-Sim for 200-101. I was under the impression that the retake policy was 5 days until I just found the info above on Cisco's testing site. I wasn't that worried with a 5 day retake as if for some reason I failed I would have several options to study my weak spots and retake in time before my current ICND1 cert expires. With the 15 day retest stated above this really will likely leave me only two chances to pass. I am NOT READY for my first test yet and may not be for a few weeks yet. Not that I am planning to fail... I'm not... However The 5 day retest was a much more comforting retake period for my nerves. I have until Sept 7th 2016 to pass 200-101. The expiration of both Version 2 tests in the next two months will really knock me for a loop if I need to retest from scratch.

Does anyone know if a grace period is offered\available in the event of a failed test near a cert expiration? Or is the tester just out of luck?

Nick

GDaines

Warpig wrote: »

Can anyone confirm the current ICND1\ICND2\CCNA retake policy?

I have seen a few places where Cisco seems to state that a retake of a failed test can not be re-tested for 5 days starting the day AFTER you fail a test. or what they referenced as "The Following Monday". I have also seen other Cisco statements like copied/pasted below that state 15 days.

Does anyone know if a grace period is offered\available in the event of a failed test near a cert expiration? Or is the tester just out of luck?

Nick

I am just booking my CCENT on Pearson Vue and it says 5 days.

There is no grace period, if the expiry date passes you'll have to take the new v3 exam instead. But you still have 11 weeks in which to take the v2 exam.

EDIT: Just re-read the original post after reading OctalDump's reply following mine and realised I'd skipped over it too quickly.

What i've said still stands, but if your ICND1 expires you'll have to take the new 100-105 ICND1 test before you can take the new ICND2 (based on the assumption you'll not be ready to take the test before each respective v2 exam expires).

OctalDump

Yes, there is a 15 day waiting period, and no, there isn't a grace period. It's just the 3 years.

I think one option if you fail could be to sit the new 200-105 exam during the 15 day wait period. There's overlap in content, so it's not too much stretch.

So the idea would be to sit 200-101, if you fail do 200-105, if you fail that as well, then you can do resit 200-101, then if need resit 200-105 etc. Possibly, you could throw in the combo exams in to this mix as well - that would be more work and more cost, though.

You can mix and match v2 and v3 CCNA, so this would still get you the CCNA R+S.

Depending on where you are weak, the v3 exam might even be easier for you. You can compare here:

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccna/icnd2_v2/exam-topics

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccna/icnd2/exam-topics

pinkiaiii

Actually theres less then 7 weeks remaining,and yeah youll have to take new one past the Aug 20th.Some advice you dont want to hold of until last day or week,since many centers will be totally packed,and just for safety leave 1-3 weeks if things go south and youll need to retake it.Since yes cool off period is 5 days,not sure is the day you took counts but either way its about week.

OctalDump

Just to clarify, is the situation this:

You studied based on the CCNA v2.0 goals.
You have CCENT (passed ICND1).
Your CCENT expires September 7th.

So you need to pass ICND2 v2.0 or v3.0 before September 7.
ICND v2 is available until 24th September.
So you aren't currently concerned about ICND2 v2 ending before you can get CCNA, since you'd need to start from the beginning anyway.

So your options are to pass ICND2 v2 or ICND2 v3 (or even the ICNDX v2 or v3) before 7 September.

You are concerned about failing, which would delay you by 15 days for each failure of the same exam, which limits your number of attempts at either one of those exams to ~3.

What I recommend: just do ICND2 as soon as you are ready. Either you take it now, fail and pay twice, or you miss your chance and have to do ICND1+ICND2 whenever you are ready. It's the same cost. If you are really not ready, then it won't be much difference to study for v3.

Warpig

OctalDump wrote: »

Just to clarify, is the situation this:

You studied based on the CCNA v2.0 goals.
You have CCENT (passed ICND1).
Your CCENT expires September 7th.

So you need to pass ICND2 v2.0 or v3.0 before September 7.
ICND v2 is available until 24th September.
So you aren't currently concerned about ICND2 v2 ending before you can get CCNA, since you'd need to start from the beginning anyway.

So your options are to pass ICND2 v2 or ICND2 v3 (or even the ICNDX v2 or v3) before 7 September.

You are concerned about failing, which would delay you by 15 days for each failure of the same exam, which limits your number of attempts at either one of those exams to ~3.

What I recommend: just do ICND2 as soon as you are ready. Either you take it now, fail and pay twice, or you miss your chance and have to do ICND1+ICND2 whenever you are ready. It's the same cost. If you are really not ready, then it won't be much difference to study for v3.

Thanks everyone for the replies. OctalDump's reply above is my situation. I didn't think to give the v3 test a whirl if I fail the V2. V2 is what I have all the material for all along and have studied for. But I guess since it's a different test the wait does not apply between V2 & v3 exams if I want to throw the cash at it. Whether I would be ready for the V3 test is another whole matter lol. I attended the Cisco ICND1/2 V3 webinar's over the past few weeks about the new V3 test differences and am thinking that V3 would be real trouble for me with what I have studied so far in V2. They moved a good portion of stuff from ICND2 V2 into ICND1 V3 and put new stuff into INCD2 V3. Gotta pass ICND2 by 9/7 come hell or high water. If I don't I guess I'll have all the time in the world to regroup and start over on V3.

I see even in this thread some have stated a 5 day retest and others a 15 day. Guess I will just have to get in there ASAP and see what happens and if I can get a 5 day resched then great, if not I will have to really beat the books\labs during that extra week to make sure I pass on any second try I may need. Provided I can get scheduled in time, being the test centers will be crowded around these times as mentioned.

I am starting to feel a little bit better about it. I need to do some serious labbing in the next week I think. I'm starting to feel better about the multiple choice aspect. Just not so much about the TShoot in labs under a time crunch. I have a pretty nice lab setup here (2960/3550 switches, 2800 Router 2x 2811 Routers and 2x ASA5510's) and doing it makes it sink in better too. Just gotta find some good labs to do.

I still have to retake 200-101 Boson sim exam #1 & the killer #3 and see how I do, but I did take Boson's sim #2 exam last night after I posted this thread and shocked myself. I actually scored a 980 on Boson #2 (untimed). I got one wrong out of 63 but I may have run overtime. Last time I took it a week ago I was at 790. If I can get #1 & #3 up in the 80's I will be scheduling sooner than later. The Boson exam #3 was a killer last time I took it, I was in the low 700's and the 6 router 4 switch troubleshooting simlet really kicked me in the gut! I struggled through and worked it out answering the 4 tabs full of multi-selects but it took WAY too long and felt overwhelming.

Nick