Finally booked ICND1...NEW CCENT!!!...nonono it's CCNA!!

I finally booked my CCENT exam for next wednesday October 8th at 15:00. I think I am really prepared for this one as I had been preparing for the 640-802 since last january (stopped in april for about 4months, I was practically ready to take the exam at the time but a non IT demanding job prevented me from doing it) and a few weeks back decided to go for the two exams route. This was when I realized there were no economic advantages from taking the big 640-802.

I will try to take ICND2 right after, maybe thursday if I dont fail this one.

For some reason I am a little nervous... Any last minute tips?

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

Megadeth4168

Good Luck!

Know subnetting, and I don't mean just how to answer questions on subnettingquestions.com I mean, know how to apply that knowledge to a network.

Know your show commands. And keep an eye on time. Don't spend more than 10 minutes on a sim, oh, and relax. I was nervous, but really, if you are prepared, once you get your first sim, you might be more shocked by how easy you think it is....

ssjtrunks11x

I got 3 sims in a row within my first 10 questions so I started to worry about time but I ended up finishing with a half hour to spare. Really if you can apply subnetting, know your show commands, and can do basic configurations it should be easy.

mikej412

Time Management. Time Management. Time Management.

Yeah, if you can't get a SIM in 10 minutes, you probably never will. Hope it's an ungraded question and move on to some easy points.

Make sure you read the complete question. Read ALL the answers. Then read the question AGAIN. You may have missed a word or two in the question and want to jump on an answer you think is correct for the question you thought you just read.... but you don't get points for giving them the right answer to the wrong question.

We tell you RELAX -- but we all know how hard that can be. But we tell you anyway -- so TRY!

Check out the Certification Exam Tutorial now so you can either skip it before your exam and get to your exam that much faster -- or use the time to jot down your emergency brain freeze subnetting chart on your dry erase marker sheet(s).

Also check out the Cisco Career Certifications and Confidentiality Agreement so you know what you'll be agreeing to before you can take the exam.

You can also check out and the Cisco Candidate Conduct Policy -- I like to check it occasionally to see if they've added "no doing the Dilbert Engineer Victory Dance in the test room after getting your passing score."

Good Luck!

mamono

Good luck!!!

Also, keep in mind that if you don't pass ICND1 640-822, you can still take it again for free using the Cisco Second Chance promotion before it expires on Oct. 15th.

Slowhand

mikej412 wrote:

I like to check it occasionally to see if they've added "no doing the Dilbert Engineer Victory Dance in the test room after getting your passing score."

If they ever create that rule, Cisco can keep their certs. I'm doing the dance after I pass my CCNP exams. And if I ever take (and pass) the CCIE lab. . . I'll track down the proctor and hump his leg once I get the score report in my inbox.

dazerski

good luck!

AlexMR

I will book the ICND2 for thursday just to have a second chance for free by October 15th. I read in the Vue person site that I must wait 5 days before retaking the exam. Is that a new policy? I honestly feel like I should practice a little more all the concepts of the ICND2 (WAN technologies specifically) , but I have time to do that in this weekend if I fail. I dont have doubts about ICND1 but there is always the possibility...

Glynixx

AlexMR,

you'll be good to go on ICND1. I wish I studied both because I'm now kicking myself because I won't have a free 2nd shot when I try ICND2. oh wells.

I'll be looking for your post tomorrow!

G.

AlexMR

I passed!!! thx everybody! Tomorrow I will take the ICND2 and I am a little nervous about it.

Performance on each section of the exam:

Describe the operation of data networks: 90%
Implement a small switched network: 100%
Implement anIP addressing scheme and IP services to meet network requirements for a small....100%
Implement a small routed network: 81%

. This concerns me a bit. I thought I had 100% on RIPv2...

Explain and selec the appropiate administrative task for a WLAN: 100%.
Security threads...: 100%
Implement and verify WAN links : 66%. WOW!

Score 925/1000. I dont know if I am supposed to tell the passing score, o I wont say it, but it was significantly below what I got

.

I am concerned about WAN technologies in tomorrow exam and I should be. I think I will try to get down as many things as possible for 4-5hours and will call it a day.

I am just considering tomorrow's exam as practice test and will do my best at it. I am feeling good about being CCENT.

My sources for studies were Interconnecting Cisco Devices 1 and 2, The official certification library and Sybex CCNA book, 6th edition. I think all I needed was covered by Lammle y his book.

I was given an additional 30minutes because I am not a native english speaker and took the test in a non english speaking country. I was done after one hour and 7minutes. The first few question took me a lot. When i was by 10 questions out of 40 i had used more than 29minutes. I was on good rythm but then a lot of easier questions showed up, FTW.

I am happy. Hopefuly will be happier tomorrow.

Diminutive

Congrats! I passed today too! That make us ICND1 Bros?

I thought I was screwed when I didn't answer 3 questions right off the bat (Those mutli-parters advance with a next with the Boson I have but i just shut down the scenario on the actual test) but I did well enough to get an 836 anyway, thank god for the 300 you get for showing up.

Good luck with ICND2! I'm going try Monday if possible.

dynamik

Since you guys are taking the two exams so close together, why didn't you just try to do it all in one shot?

Congratulations to both of you

Diminutive

dynamik wrote:

Since you guys are taking the two exams so close together, why didn't you just try to do it all in one shot?

Congratulations to both of you

well, I probably won't be ready for ICND2 actually, but I did consider doing the one exam but Jeremy Cioara said there were real time constraints with that test on C B T Nougats (that autolink annoys me).

Slowhand

Congrats on the pass! (Did you do the victory dance?)

AlexMR

Slowhand, I actually saw myself with my arms up in signal of victory after I saw the satisfying results

. Does that count for the dance?

Dynamik, as diminutive I was afraid of the time constraints that Jeremy and lots of other trainers/CCNA keep mentioning. I was going for the one exam route until they added $100 to the cost making it the same as the two exams route. I will have to wait till Tomorrow to see if I can do it as fast as I did it today. It all seems like not so much information today, but just a couple weeks ago it was soo much I couldnt help feeling a little overwhelmed sometimes.

Today I met a double CCIE (service provider and security). The guy is directing a major project here in DR. He is CCIE #186. WOW. He used to be in the military and have some wonderful experiences. He told me the CCNA is just the tip, that I should get the CCNP and then we'll be talking business. Jeez.

Back to studying really hard I suppose.

mamono

Congrats!!!

Best of luck on ICND2!

Slowhand

AlexMR wrote:

Slowhand, I actually saw myself with my arms up in signal of victory after I saw the satisfying results . Does that count for the dance?

I'll allow it. A touchdown-arms-up signal is close enough, but an endzone dance would have been preferred.

Megadeth4168

Congrats!

ssjtrunks11x

AlexMR wrote:

Slowhand, I actually saw myself with my arms up in signal of victory after I saw the satisfying results . Does that count for the dance?

Dynamik, as diminutive I was afraid of the time constraints that Jeremy and lots of other trainers/CCNA keep mentioning. I was going for the one exam route until they added $100 to the cost making it the same as the two exams route. I will have to wait till Tomorrow to see if I can do it as fast as I did it today. It all seems like not so much information today, but just a couple weeks ago it was soo much I couldnt help feeling a little overwhelmed sometimes.

Today I met a double CCIE (service provider and security). The guy is directing a major project here in DR. He is CCIE #186. WOW. He used to be in the military and have some wonderful experiences. He told me the CCNA is just the tip, that I should get the CCNP and then we'll be talking business. Jeez.

Back to studying really hard I suppose. .

It's amazing that it all seems so overwhelming at first then you study it for a few weeks and think you're maybe getting it and all of a sudden it all just clicks, at least for me on the first exam, hopefully the second (and third, fourth, fifth, etc) is the same way.

dynamik

AlexMR wrote:

Today I met a double CCIE (service provider and security). The guy is directing a major project here in DR. He is CCIE #186. WOW. He used to be in the military and have some wonderful experiences. He told me the CCNA is just the tip, that I should get the CCNP and then we'll be talking business. Jeez.

Back to studying really hard I suppose. .

I thought they assigned #1024 to the lab itself and then people were given numbers after that...

It's funny, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. It's definitely a roller coaster ride. You feel really knowledgeable upon passing an exam, but then you feel like an idiot again when you crack open the next book

the_Grinch

If he does a dance I hope his testing center doesn't have a security camera like mine! Congrats!

mikej412

AlexMR wrote:

I passed!!!

Congratulations!

Good Luck on ICND2!

AlexMR wrote:

Tomorrow I will take the ICND2

Congratulations!

I'm assuming you've passed, or you're passing this as I type, or will be passing soon. Don't make me come back and edit my post!

AlexMR

Woot! I did it!!! Thank you guys!!!! I passed ICND2 and Im now a new CCNA!!!

.

I almost failed, but a pass is a pass. 835/1000. As i said, I have big issues with WAN implementations. I didnt study enoughof that for some reason. I found all the theory a little boring for some reason.

This is how I did:

Configure, verify and troubleshoot vlans and interswitch communications 73%. Dont know why so low there.

Implement an IP addressing scheme and IP services to meet network requirements in a medium...100%.

Configure, verify and troubleshoot basic routing operation on cisco devices: 73%. Very low too. Dont know what happened there too. I felt very confident about everything included an...whoops, i cant comment on exam things, sorry.

Implement, veyfy and troubleshoot NAT and ACLs....66%. This is shocking. I really feel I was super strong at those..I didnt see many questions of those though.

WAN: 66%

Low scores but I am really happy anyway! I went to the test room feeling I was going to get a grasp of the exam to passit next week and I came out a CCNA. It feels great.

I must say that it really doesnt matter if you take the two exams route, the Sybex CCNA 6th. edition by Todd Lamle cover all the topics of both exams wonderfully. If you answer all the questions in that book and really understand the logic behind every answer then you should have no problems passing both tests.

I am glad I went for a little extra after I felt I was ready because the test are not precisely easy. Well, I thought the ICND1 was easy to be honest, but there were questions in the ICND2 today that i thought were really hard/confusing. The simulations were not hard, but one of them took me 20minutes to finish.

If it hadnt been for the extra 30minutes granted for not being a native english speaker I wouldnt have passed, because i finished with 21 minutes left. Right now I dont know which path to take. I would love to start working and have my employer/JOB suggest the path I should take, but I wont take any breaks now, I will hit the books tomorrow even when i dont know which ones yet :P.

The CCIE I met lastnight told me to forget about the other CCNA certs and go straight for the CCNP. He told me I had a job guaranteed withhim when Im CCNP. That bastard.

.

Thank you guys again, It would have been so much harder without these forums.

mikej412

AlexMR wrote:

The CCIE I met lastnight told me to forget about the other CCNA certs and go straight for the CCNP. He told me I had a job guaranteed withhim when Im CCNP. That bastard. .

Unless you have a thing for Security or Voice (or Wireless), the CCNP does make sense. It will reinforce what you just learned and force you to brush up on your weak areas.

If you think you'd like to make this Cisco thing a career, go grab Doyle Routing TCP/IP (at least Volume 1) and start reading. I think doing your first read of Doyle while studying for the CCNP makes sense.

Since the CCNP can take some time -- do both. Go find an employer/job who will give you experience and learn what they need you to learn (and hopefully pay for classes/study materials).... while working on your CCNP. Then when you have your CCNP, if you're ready for a new challenge (job), hunt down that CCIE and demand that guaranteed job.

Oh, and thanks for passing so I wouldn't have to edit my previous post

dynamik

Congratulations again!

AlexMR wrote:

Implement, veyfy and troubleshoot NAT and ACLs....66%. This is shocking. I really feel I was super strong at those..I didnt see many questions of those though.

WAN: 66%

Keep in mind that you may have missed 1/3 or 2/6. Percentages can be really misleading when there's only a handful of questions.

Diminutive

woot gratz!

Slowhand

Congrats again, welcome to the CCNA club.

And remember, kids, don't fail your Cisco exams. Mike hates to edit his posts. Don't waste Mike's time, pass your tests.

dynamik

Slowhand wrote:

And remember, kids, don't fail your Cisco exams. Mike hates to edit his posts. Don't waste Mike's time, pass your tests.

That is the sole reason why I don't announce my exam date/time in advance

Even in the MS forums...

AlexMR

Thanks guys!!!

I think that is the reason for the low scores on a couple things: Very few questions.

Mike, as for the study path, honestly, the ideal thing would be what I say, but right now to devote to the CCNP and be at least a year or who knows for how long without something to show in the mean time, that's tough. I really need something that helps me get my feet into the field. I know the CCNP is the one and only...but I need to know if there is another not so big certification (CCNA concentrations maybe) that could help me get started.

I think Mr. CCIE said I should get the CCNP before making the change because my job title sounds bigger than what my check indicates: Engineering director (of a known firm here in DR).

A friend of mine have both Routing TCP/IP and the BSCI exam certification guide. Maybe I could start there. It's like 2.5thousand pages of material

...

Slowhand

AlexMR wrote:

A friend of mine have both Routing TCP/IP and the BSCI exam certification guide. Maybe I could start there. It's like 2.5thousand pages of material ...

Once you finish that, what are you going to do with the rest of your weekend?

mamono

Congrats on becoming a CCNA!

I hope that I'll be able to say the same in the near future. The studying studying studying is driving me batty.