BCMSN 642-811 is a joke!

I'm sorry but I just did the BCMSN exam today and it is a joke of an exam!
It is far and away too easy to be called a professional exam. It's all high level, basic questions.

After spending two months studying for this exam I am very, very disappointed. I'm also going to email Cisco to complain.

Obviously I don't want the world's hardest exam but in all honesty this exam does not in the slightest way indicate whether or not someone is capable of understanding or configuring switches and makes the exam almost a pointless certification to have in my opinion.

I knew that this was the easiest of the CCNP exams but you could pass this exam if you've read a switching book once and never even seen a switch.

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Comments

Webmaster

I'm preparing for this exam and I don't mind it being 'easy', but 'a joke' doesn't sound good...

Perhaps you got a real lucky draw from the question pool?

Congratulations anyway!

mairtin

Perhaps I did just get a very, very lucky draw from the question pool but I only had one simulation question which had almost nothing to do with switching.. in fact 90% of it was stuff you learn in CCNA!

There was no configuring HRSP, EtherChannels, QoS or anything!

If you understood just VTP then you could have passed my exam today.. then again I guess I could have just gotten lucky.. I was shocked at how many questions there was on it.

Oh and the multicast questions were about as difficult as identifying a multicast MAC address (not converting an ip to mac address).. even though there was only one answer which began with 01:00:5e...

mairtin

Good luck with yours btw!

Webmaster

I would expect more than 1 sim indeed, and QoS as well...

Good luck with yours btw!

Thanks

I think you should get more satisfaction from passing the BCRAN and CIT exam

picmario

Hi,

congratulations!! just a couple of questions:

1) any CatOS set based commands questions? I think they are no more included in the exam, but I`m not sure 100%

2) What kind of questions from the multilayer switching part can I expect? As far as I know there should only be questions about topology based switching, and nothing about flow-based...

Thanks in advance,
Mario

shepwad

Congrats all on passing the BCMSN! Sorry to hear you thought it was a waste of time, but hey at least you passed and can move on to the next level kinda thing.

I work with medium to large switched networks on a day to day basis so am going to take this exam soon. Can anyone let me know if it is CATOS or IOS based (or both), and what simulator q's have folks encountered?

Any advice greatly recieved!

mairtin

Thanks to all.

As regards the exam.. at this stage I can barely remember the questions... but as far as I remember there was one on CatOS but the majority of them were IOS and the simulator was IOS based.
This was something I had been thinking about before the exam as well..

And for multilayer switching.. I'd recommend that you know what the different types of flows are in netflow switching.
You should definitely know the basics of netflow switching and also the components of CEF (FIB and Adjacency Table) and how the Adjacency Table is built (ARPs).

The practise questions I used were the Boson ones. And they were far harder than the real exam.

Shepwad.. If you work with switches on a daily basis then I'd imagine this exam should be no problem to you. I work mainly with 6500s and 3550s it was grand.

joe2065

mairtin wrote:

I'm sorry but I just did the BCMSN exam today and it is a joke of an exam!
It is far and away too easy to be called a professional exam. It's all high level, basic questions.

After spending two months studying for this exam I am very, very disappointed. I'm also going to email Cisco to complain.

Obviously I don't want the world's hardest exam but in all honesty this exam does not in the slightest way indicate whether or not someone is capable of understanding or configuring switches and makes the exam almost a pointless certification to have in my opinion.

I knew that this was the easiest of the CCNP exams but you could pass this exam if you've read a switching book once and never even seen a switch.

is anyone using bososn exams questions for new bcmsn 642-811 i used them and it does not help

rossonieri#1

congrats....