SecondChance survivor! finally CCNA
mamono
Member Posts: 776 ■■□□□□□□□□
in CCNA & CCENT
I started my CCNA studies in March 2008. Passed ICND1 for my CCENT mid April. Started studying for ICND2 toward the end of April. Fast forward, first time I took the ICND2 640-816 exam was in July. I failed it miserably... I failed so bad that that I had 15 minutes left and was only 1/2 through the exam. Obviously, I did not pace myself and wasn't solving problems fast enough. There were severe gaps in area that I knew I was weak in.
So this takes me to where I am now even though its been a few days, but I passed the ICND2 640-816 on Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 14th. Between July and Oct, I kicked my studies up a couple notches. One week right before my deadline of Oct. 14th, I secluded myself from the world to review and cover all the material from the beginning to end clocking in about 12-16 hours a day including the weekend.
The exam started off well, I was very confident up until somewhere in the middle when I got a question that I knew the answer to but didn't see the correct answer displayed on the screen... I felt like I had just received a slap in the face followed by a kick in the nads and it dumbfounded me. I lost my pace again as the clock ticked at me tauntingly and then I randomly picked an answer that was as close as possible yet still wrong, but then I pulled myself together and put it out of my head because it was just one question. I finished with about 15 minutes on the clock. I sat there in shock letting out a sigh of relief as I stared at the pass displayed on the screen. That looming thought of that one question still hanging over my head like a rain cloud ready to pour.
When leaving the testing center, I thought to myself... maybe, just maybe, that was an experimental question? ... hm...
I believe that if I had kept my resolve throughout the exam like I did the first half, I would have done better. I passed with an 835.
Study material:
Sybex CCNA by Todd Lamelle
CBT Nuggets (Borrowed) - Didn't seem to really help me much, good for overall review.
Train Signal (Borrowed) - I liked Chris Bryant's explanations, he does a great job of explaining the technical because he uses facts and lays down the raw data followed by implementation.
Packet Tracer 5.0
Cisco 2501 (Borrowed)
TechExams.net forums - Obviously, I learned a great deal from the posts. Reading and lurking to pick at all the great information that shows up. Also, answering questions helped me reaffirm the study material.
I have various Cisco Press books that I has collected when I was originally planning to take the 640-801 exam, but didn't get the opportunity to study for it. So, I used those as reference material when studying for this one. Outdated, so I won't mention them other than by their authors: Steve McQuerry, Wendell Odom, and Scott Empson.
So this takes me to where I am now even though its been a few days, but I passed the ICND2 640-816 on Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 14th. Between July and Oct, I kicked my studies up a couple notches. One week right before my deadline of Oct. 14th, I secluded myself from the world to review and cover all the material from the beginning to end clocking in about 12-16 hours a day including the weekend.
The exam started off well, I was very confident up until somewhere in the middle when I got a question that I knew the answer to but didn't see the correct answer displayed on the screen... I felt like I had just received a slap in the face followed by a kick in the nads and it dumbfounded me. I lost my pace again as the clock ticked at me tauntingly and then I randomly picked an answer that was as close as possible yet still wrong, but then I pulled myself together and put it out of my head because it was just one question. I finished with about 15 minutes on the clock. I sat there in shock letting out a sigh of relief as I stared at the pass displayed on the screen. That looming thought of that one question still hanging over my head like a rain cloud ready to pour.
When leaving the testing center, I thought to myself... maybe, just maybe, that was an experimental question? ... hm...
I believe that if I had kept my resolve throughout the exam like I did the first half, I would have done better. I passed with an 835.
Study material:
Sybex CCNA by Todd Lamelle
CBT Nuggets (Borrowed) - Didn't seem to really help me much, good for overall review.
Train Signal (Borrowed) - I liked Chris Bryant's explanations, he does a great job of explaining the technical because he uses facts and lays down the raw data followed by implementation.
Packet Tracer 5.0
Cisco 2501 (Borrowed)
TechExams.net forums - Obviously, I learned a great deal from the posts. Reading and lurking to pick at all the great information that shows up. Also, answering questions helped me reaffirm the study material.
I have various Cisco Press books that I has collected when I was originally planning to take the 640-801 exam, but didn't get the opportunity to study for it. So, I used those as reference material when studying for this one. Outdated, so I won't mention them other than by their authors: Steve McQuerry, Wendell Odom, and Scott Empson.
Comments
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Mishra
Member Posts: 2,468 ■■■■□□□□□□
Congrats. Always nice to hear when someone works hard on a certification and gets success. -
janmike
Member Posts: 3,076
Excellent! Congrats for passing."It doesn't matter, it's in the past!"--Rafiki -
laidbackfreak
Member Posts: 991
congrats on the pass..... dont sweat about the score it dont matter in the big scheme of things...
your not first to find a question\answer wrong on a cisco exam and wont be the last....
just shows you now your stuff and thats all that counts
if I say something that can be taken one of two ways and one of them offends, I usually mean the other one :-) -
nel
Member Posts: 2,859 ■□□□□□□□□□
Congrats man. Im glad to hear youo've nailed it because i know you were disappointed the last time!
Got to give it to you a min of 12 hours a day is a mammoth study session! Well done!Xbox Live: Bring It On
Bsc (hons) Network Computing - 1st Class
WIP: Msc advanced networking -
Jamie132st
Member Posts: 12 ■□□□□□□□□□
Congrats buddy!!!!!Favorite Quote: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
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Diminutive
Member Posts: 102 ■■■□□□□□□□
Congratz! Its always nice to get the 2nd chance right so you aren't out of pocket.WIP: Win2008 MCITP Upgrade -
the_Grinch
Member Posts: 4,165 ■■■■■■■■■■
Congrats man!WIP:
PHP
Kotlin
Intro to Discrete Math
Programming Languages
Work stuff -
mamono
Member Posts: 776 ■■□□□□□□□□
Thank you everyone for the support!
One reason why I like these forums so much! 
mikej412 wrote:Wow!! Must have been a heck of a Celebration
if you're just getting around to posting now 
I'll be celebrating soon. Actually, the past few days was mostly recovery. I really pushed myself that last week where I was drinking lots of green/black tea, energy drinks, and even went through an economy sized bag of brain food (aka peanut M&M's).
I start studying again today for ITIL v3 Foundations and MS 70-621. Get MCSA out of the way, then back to Cisco for CCNA: Wireless, CCDA, and CWNA. Lots of plans... So little time.
