CCNA EXAM

Manglian

Hi there.
I have following questions for CCNA Composite exam and would appreciate your answers.

In actual exam are we allowed to use calculator and use pen and paper ?.
Are we allowed to take written table with us?

Can we leave a question and go for next question and then come back and answer a question we left?.

And at last I have heard about people say on different forums about differet keys TAB or ? Key what have those keys to do with exam?

Cheers

nel

Manglian wrote:

Hi there.
I have following questions for CCNA Composite exam and would appreciate your answers.

In actual exam are we allowed to use calculator and use pen and paper ?.
Are we allowed to take written table with us?

Can we leave a question and go for next question and then come back and answer a question we left?.

And at last I have heard about people say on different forums about differet keys TAB or ? Key what have those keys to do with exam?

Cheers

Hi,

You arent allowed a calc.

You get a plastic sheet and felt tip pen from the exam centre

No you cant go back to a question once youve pressed next

You cant take anything written in the exam but before you start the exam you can write notes down on the sheet you are given from the exam centre.

In regards to the tab and ? key. Those are i relation to whether they work in the sims .

laidbackfreak

Manglian wrote:

Hi there.
I have following questions for CCNA Composite exam and would appreciate your answers.

In actual exam are we allowed to use calculator and use pen and paper ?.
No Calculators allowed... and teh exam centre should supply you with a pen and wipe board.... thats all your allowed to use

Are we allowed to take written table with us?
its a closed book exam so nothing can be taken into the exam with you.... use the 15mins exam guide to write out any tables you need to....


Can we leave a question and go for next question and then come back and answer a question we left?.
NO.... once you hit next there is no going back regardless if you answered the question or not...

And at last I have heard about people say on different forums about differet keys TAB or ? Key what have those keys to do with exam?

both the "tab" key and the "?" are available in teh exam..... in the cisco IOS the tab completes the current syntax the "?" gives a list of available commands ....
both very useful in the exam and the real world....

JimmiG

Hi. I tried posting a new thread asking about the Tab and ? keys but it was removed. Apparently this thread *was* allowed in spite of discussing the exact same question I asked.

Without saying too much, my experience regarding the Tab and ? keys does not correspond with what "laidbackfreak" is saying. This caused problems for me during the exam. I don't want to "****", I just want to know whether there were technical problems preventing me from taking the exam properly.

hiddenknight821

JimmiG wrote: »

Hi. I tried posting a new thread asking about the Tab and ? keys but it was removed. Apparently this thread *was* allowed in spite of discussing the exact same question I asked.

Without saying too much, my experience regarding the Tab and ? keys does not correspond with what "laidbackfreak" is saying. This caused problems for me during the exam. I don't want to "****", I just want to know whether there were technical problems preventing me from taking the exam properly.

I dunno about LaidBackFreak's experience, but from my experience, you have to know all the other possible commands to get to the correct solution since one command may not be the same as the other command. I cannot say much without violating the NDA, but let me try to put it this way. If you are able to do the "?" key on the exam, then that would make the sim a whole lot easier for you and everyone else and there's no point of having a sim question on the test in the first place.

The test wants to test you to see if you know another "way" as in another command to solve the problem. Let me give you an analogy for an example. If you are trying to test to see if there is something wrong with your NIC on the computer, and you dunno why you can't reach the web server. You already tried pinging the web server, but it doesn't really tell you the underlying problem is. Well, another way to test to see what may be wrong with it is to ping the loopback, and you probably just realize it failed.

JimmiG

Well I got some more answers from another, more helpful forum where the moderators don't try to quiet down genuine technical issues with the exam.

What it comes down to is a *bug* in the Cisco Network Simulator used in the exams. The simulator engine only works with the US English keyboard layout. Since I took the exam here in Sweden, the computer was set to Swedish by default. So while I was trying to type "?" and this was what appeared on the screen, the simulator engine interpreted it as whatever the same key combination would have produced with the US layout (I'm guessing "_", because this is what you get if you try to type "?" on Swedish keyboard, with Windows set to US English). So instead of, for example "Show ?", I would have typed "Show _".

This is (apparently) public information which can be safely reposted: http://247pearsoned.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8075/~/network-simulator-%28ccna-or-ccent%29%3A-question-mark-key,-invalid-input

So if taking the exam in a country with a different keyboard layout as standard, make sure to ask the staff at the test center to configure your computer for US English before you start. The symbols on your physical keyboard won't correspond with what appears when you type, but at least what appears on the screen will correspond with what the simulator engine is receiving.

Obviously there's a large number of different questions and sims. It's certainly possible that some indeed have the ? functionality disabled by design. But the use of "?" is something you're taught in the CCNA courses and you're encouraged to use in labs as well as in real life. I don't agree that "?" makes exams pointless. You still need to know each command and exactly how it works. But it can be a lifeline when there's a command or keyword you can't remember.

I've done like the other candidates who've experienced the same difficulty, and contacted Vue. Most likely they'll file an incident report and let me take the test again since I didn't get the same chance of passing as others.

hiddenknight821

JimmiG wrote: »

Well I got some more answers from another, more helpful forum where the moderators don't try to quiet down genuine technical issues with the exam.

What it comes down to is a *bug* in the Cisco Network Simulator used in the exams. The simulator engine only works with the US English keyboard layout. Since I took the exam here in Sweden, the computer was set to Swedish by default. So while I was trying to type "?" and this was what appeared on the screen, the simulator engine interpreted it as whatever the same key combination would have produced with the US layout (I'm guessing "_", because this is what you get if you try to type "?" on Swedish keyboard, with Windows set to US English). So instead of, for example "Show ?", I would have typed "Show _".

This is (apparently) public information which can be safely reposted: http://247pearsoned.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8075/~/network-simulator-%28ccna-or-ccent%29%3A-question-mark-key,-invalid-input

So if taking the exam in a country with a different keyboard layout as standard, make sure to ask the staff at the test center to configure your computer for US English before you start. The symbols on your physical keyboard won't correspond with what appears when you type, but at least what appears on the screen will correspond with what the simulator engine is receiving.

Obviously there's a large number of different questions and sims. It's certainly possible that some indeed have the ? functionality disabled by design. But the use of "?" is something you're taught in the CCNA courses and you're encouraged to use in labs as well as in real life.

I've done like the other candidates who've experienced the same difficulty, and contacted Vue. Most likely they'll file an incident report and let me take the test again since I didn't get the same chance of passing as others.

This is interesting. That's definitely something new I learned today. Thanks for sharing that with us, and I hope you get a free retake. Good luck on your next attempt.

instant000

Simulator only designed for a certain keyboard layout. Good to know. (Shouldn't they publish this type of information to the test centers, so they can set up the exams properly for the test takers?)

I know I'd be upset if I studied for months, then go into a test, and the keys not work on the keyboard! (As if the pressure of taking the test itself isn't bad enough? LOL.)

mikej412

JimmiG wrote: »

Well I got some more answers from another, more helpful forum where the moderators don't try to quiet down genuine technical issues with the exam.

You had a post deleted for violating the Cisco NDA

mikej412

JimmiG wrote: »

Apparently this thread *was* allowed in spite of discussing the exact same question I asked.

This thread was allowed because no one also posted the SIMs they had like you did.

TechExams.net is NOT a **** forum.