CCNA 200-301 Passed(Horrible test center experience)

DFTK13

Hello everyone, I just passed my CCNA 200-301 exam as the title says as of this morning. My score was 839/1000, not great but it is a pass but my experience is below.

Ok, so I scheduled the exam through pearsonvue and drove to the testing place that I had taken my CCENT years ago around 9am as my test was at 9:30. I walked up to the door at 9:15 to go through the sign in, pictures and etc. But all the lights were off, no one was in the building. I panicked a bit and double checked my schedule paper to make sure that my date of 3-14-20 of today was correct. Then I thought maybe someone was in the back, so I tried the door and it was unlocked and that reinforced my conjecture that someone was already in the building(WAS I WRONG!) so I walked in and I started looking around and then all of the sudden, I heard this really loud siren going off(approx 30 secs after I walked in). For those of you that know or don't know, I'm deaf and I have one hearing aid that I can only hear just a little bit with and this thing was friggen loud, it scared the crap out of me and I immediately walked outside and closed the door. The alarm would go on for about 10 minutes before it shut off and people were walking by giving me weird looks. I felt so pissed off at the moment, like I couldn't believe that 15 minutes before my exam NO ONE IS IN THE BUILDING! And I was getting ready to have to explain myself to a cop that rolled up, but then at 9:26...4 MINUTES BEFORE MY EXAM...the proctor shows up. He just waves at me and I told him that the door was unlocked and the alarm went off and he looked at me like he screwed up...like he didn't lock the door the day before. I recollected myself and walked in to go through the sign up. Then he led me to my test. He only gave me 2 laminated papers and a whiteboard marker...nothing to wipe it off with, so it smudged like crazy. I was just trying to keep positive at that point as I took my exam. 

Exam experience: I had 102 questions, the actual exam was 120 minutes. I can't go into detail about the contents itself due to the NDA, but I will reiterate what many people such as David Bombal, Paul Browning, Jeremy Cioara, Chuck Keith have all said on their youtube channels. There is content on the exam NOT listed in the syllabus itself which requires in depth knowledge of them to solve the overall question. Go watch David Bombal's youtube CCNA 200-301 experience, he will tell you exactly what to study, I think he's the most dead on in the content coverage. The questions are difficult but not impossible. I could not have passed without Boson ExSim for sure. 

Study Material:

I spent about 5-6 months studying and I used 

• Cisco OCG Volume 1 and 2 by Wendell Odom
• CCNA 200-301 Volume 2 Certification Study guide by Todd Lammle(to drive more complex concepts home)
• Boson Netsim 12 and 13
• Boson ExSim 200-301
• Some CBT Nuggets(too expensive after 2 months)
• Youtube(David Bombal, NetworkChuck)
• Prayer

Conclusion: I made it to the end of the screen before the score report, and I thought I had failed for sure...but I just said a prayer and I went to the next screen and it said I made 839, minimum score 825...I was elated to say the least. What was an initially horrible experience turned out great! I passed! Thank you TE for your insights and your encouragements! 

stryder144

Awesome job!  Keep it up!  Glad that you were able to pass the exam despite the initial difficulties.

DFTK13

Thanks! It was one of few times in my life when I went from one emotional extreme to the other, glad its over!

Definitely! I really want to get involved with the cloud as my long term goal and gonna do the AWS CSA associate as my next cert.

itdept

Awesome work, CCNA sure is a roller-coaster!

Jon_Cisco

Great Job! Sounds like a horrible exam day but you handled it well.

Neil86

Congrats! Glad you kicked butt despite the unique experience!

DFTK13

Thanks guys! I appreciate the support! 

bigdogz

@DFTK13 Congratulations on the pass. Nice in depth post.

I think if you just waited in the testing center, the cop would have figured it out. I probably would have turned my hearing aids off and waited by the door with the test documentation.

It sounds like a roller coaster of emotions. I am glad it ended well for you.

yuddhidhtir

Congrats! You have performed very well under pressure.

vaiking2020

Can anyone explain this concept?

The “ipv6 address autoconfig” command causes the device to perform IPv6 stateless address auto-configuration to discover prefixes on the link and then to add the EUI-64 based addresses to the interface. Addresses are configured depending on the prefixes received in Router Advertisement messages. The device will listen for RA messages which are transmitted periodically from the router (DHCP Server). This RA message allows a host to create a global IPv6 address from:
+ Its interface identifier (EUI-64 address)
+ Link Prefix (obtained via RA)
Note: Global address is the combination of Link Prefix and EUI-64 address

greg9891

DFTK13. 839 seems like a pretty Good score to me.....Congrats. Also what are your plans now? are you currently working or are you looking to take another cert?

stryder144

vaiking2020 said:

Can anyone explain this concept?

The “ipv6 address autoconfig” command causes the device to perform IPv6 stateless address auto-configuration to discover prefixes on the link and then to add the EUI-64 based addresses to the interface. Addresses are configured depending on the prefixes received in Router Advertisement messages. The device will listen for RA messages which are transmitted periodically from the router (DHCP Server). This RA message allows a host to create a global IPv6 address from:
+ Its interface identifier (EUI-64 address)
+ Link Prefix (obtained via RA)
Note: Global address is the combination of Link Prefix and EUI-64 address

As I understand it, and please correct me if I am wrong, the command will make the device listen for the for router advertisements that are being transmitted across the network (think of it as a router yelling into the void what its network address is). That will be a 64 bit network address, the first 64 bits of the overall 128 bits that are required for IPv6. The second 64 bits required is the interface's ID, which is going to be either the 48 bit MAC address plus FFFE in the middle, which splits the 48 bit address into two 24 bit parts with the FFFE inserted between, or it will be a 64 bit MAC. The MAC addresses are always taken from the NIC, unless the organization decides on a different MAC scheme for some reason (ease of administration, for instance).

DFTK13

@greg9891

Thanks! I’m currently working(thank the Lord). I work as a helpdesk engineer at a MSP with I’m exposed to Windows server, o365 and some azure. I previously sought to get an amazon cloud cert but now I believe Azure certs are the best way to go where I’m at. I also want to get my CCNP, specifically ENCOR then ENARSI.