ICND Test in 2 hours :D

bmauro

Really excited to finally (hopefully) get this over with. I've been studying on and off for a couple years and only recently did I find a job that I could really use the material in the CCNA.

Got a 1000/1000 on the Intro - but I know going into this that it will be completely different.

Last couple days I've been hitting ISDN hard and finally feel comfortable, taking practice tests I'm scoring high 80s and low 90s, not as high as I would like, but I try to avoid taking a test more than once so I don't memorize answers. I find most of the questions I miss are either due to not reading a question fully, or the question being an obscure command that wasn't covered in my books.

Here's what I'm expecting -

Sims:
RIP or IGRP configuration
OSPF single area config
ACL
VLAN/VTP

Which I'm fine with - I just need to make sure I take my time and read everything CAREFULLY.

/fingers crossed.

They better not have a DHCP sim :P

dissolved

You'll be fine, post your score in here when you pass

J2tehk

Watch your time. Good luck.

loboernesto

Good luck man, I hope you do as well as in the intro.
I'm taking the 640-801 on Monday, I think I'm OK on most of the topics. As well as you ISDN is the one I'm gonna focus on at my final studying hours.
I'm now running over Odom books which I haven't had the chance to look at until the beginning of this week. I'm in the 5th chapter of the ICND books so I hope to finish it by tomorrow (spending some extra time with ISDN) and dedicate the weekend to do some practice exams and review the topics in which I score poorly.

Post your score and any other advice you on taking the exam once you are over.

good luck.

mikej412

Good Luck!

Watch the "time management" and remember to breathe!

cambei

Good luck man.

bmauro

Whewwwwww.............. 902/1000

Not to sound greedy - but I was kinda hoping for a slightly higher score, but a pass is a pass - right?

I'll try to stay as generic (but helpful) in my review:

Test was 40 questions in 60 minutes. During the tutorial before the test I used that time to write down all the 8 subnets - just so I didn't fiddle with it during the test.

For the Intro - I finished with amble time - so for some reason I wasn't too worried about time management (silly me).

First SIM I had - well lets just say I could not believe how easy it was. Really. Nonetheless I triple checked everything just to make sure. I really liked the exam to be honest - no curve-balls - straight-forward test.

I did make sure to double check all my answers and read every selection to make sure I didn't miss read anything - and with a little under 20 minutes left and 10 questions, I felt good. But then I thought "If I get hit with one or two tough SIMs that require planning - I could be screwed"

That got me nervous and I started to hurry up through the rest of the exam. I finished with under 10 minutes - and I bet that I missed a majority of my questions in those last 10.

I did not have nearly the amount of SIMs that I was expecting (can I say how many I had?)

The questions were all the important stuff that everyone here should know is important already:

RIP
OSPF
EIGRP
STP
VLAN
VTP
Subnetting
Frame-Relay

Not really news - but I was slightly pissed that I didn't get ONE DAMN ISDN QUESTION!!! I had spent the last half week reading and re-reading ISDN and those stupid reference points because they were giving me such problems :P But at least I should be done with ISDN for good now

Books I used:

Cisco Press
Sybex

Really - those two as we all know are the two best - and they were perfect on their material.

Sim:
DYNAMIPS (BEST SOFTWARE EVER) Seriously - if you have access to Cisco IOS then its the best thing you can get yourself. I can do RIP - OSPF - Frame-Relay - basically anything you can do with a 7200 or 3260 Router you can do with this. You design your network - and it works soooooo much better then any other SIM out there. Head over to the CCNP and CCIE forums to see.

Real Lab:

(2) 2507
(2)2621
(1)2611
(2)2950
(1)3550

Sorry for such a long winded post - just want to help out future testers however I can.

moss12

Great score bmauro

I am going for my ICND end of December your tips will definitely help me in achieving the same score as you hopefully well done, what's next CCNP?

loboernesto

thanks for that post, and congratulations!.

bmauro

I really would like to head straight over to the CCNP - but with the revision that will take place this January, and from what I hear - no study material for the new tests for a couple months I decided to use that time to finish up my MCSA (290 and 291 all I need) and then CCNP material should be available.

So as of right now I'm planning 70-290 and 70-291 (already setting up VMWare for my lab) Hopefully will have that done and have my MCSA by early next year.

Thanks for everyone that answered by many noob questions, and hopefully I can start answering some questions in the future

steve-o87

Congratz

Welcome to the club

mikej412

Congratulations!

bmauro wrote:

I did not have nearly the amount of SIMs that I was expecting (can I say how many I had?)

You're not supposed to.... the NDA includes something about "number of questions" -- which could be taken to mean the number of questions you had on the exam, the number of questions on a specific topic from the blueprint, or the number sims, drag 'n drops, etc... I think you are allowed to say if you passed or failed the exam.

Don't forget to log onto the Cisco Certification Tracking system using the info on your score report. I think they say 10 days or so... but you may be able to login and create your profile (and make your certification paper/electronic choice) as soon as tomorrow or the next day.

dissolved

bmauro wrote:

Not really news - but I was slightly pissed that I didn't get ONE DAMN ISDN QUESTION!!! I had spent the last half week reading and re-reading ISDN and those stupid reference points because they were giving me such problems :P But at least I should be done with ISDN for good now
.

I'm not surprised that you didnt' get any ISDN questions. ISDN is a dinosaur, it's already phased out of the CCIE Security track. The CCNP is phasing it out too. I took my CCNA a while ago and I think I had 2 questions on ISDN. Ancient $hit you don't really need to know, unless your work is using ancient technology