Zen and the Art of Taking Practice Exams

sjcatsjcat Member Posts: 10 ■□□□□□□□□□
in CCNA & CCENT
All these practice exams are driving me crazy. Seriously, does anyone bother to proof these things before they sell them to all us desperate crammers? It’s like they took the guy with no attention to detail who was driving everyone crazy by constantly messing up all the router configurations and crashing the network and put him in a room and told him to write some practice exams just to keep him from destroying the whole place.

It may be the late-night cramming fatigue but I swear if I can’t get a job actually working in this field, I’ll defiantly be able to get a job writing practice exams.
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  • dynamikdynamik Banned Posts: 12,312 ■■■■■■■■■□
    What product are you using?
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  • poguepogue Member Posts: 213
    dynamik wrote: »
    What product are you using?

    Lol...Nice cast..... icon_smile.gif
    Currently working on: CCNA:Security
    Up next: CCNA:Voice
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  • stuh84stuh84 Member Posts: 503
    I find the Boson ones pretty bad. There's a few questions in the CCNA ones which either have diagrams missing (which when its asking about whether Link 5 in the diagram could have 802.1Q trunking, or Link 6 requires a crossover cable, it aint good), or the questions are flat out wrong. The last practice exam I did a couple of days ago, it was to do with subnetting, and I know for a fact I was right, but it kept telling me the answers I had chose were wrong.

    However, I've seen even worse ones icon_sad.gif
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  • stlsmoorestlsmoore Member Posts: 515 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Yea I noticed some of the Boson Questions were either vague are confusing to where I didn't understand what they were asking me to figure out.
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  • sjcatsjcat Member Posts: 10 ■□□□□□□□□□
    I'm using:
    the Cisco Press ICND1 book
    Train Signal
    Semsim Exam
    Boson Netsim
    Todd Lammle's CCNA Book

    I had a vision last night that I'll fail the ICND1 exam by one point because I memorized the wrong answer on one of these practice exams.

    Seriously though, I learned alot by having to go back and double check every single answer in the cisco press review sections with what they said in the chapters.
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  • mikej412mikej412 Member Posts: 10,086 ■■■■■■■■■■
    sjcat wrote: »
    I had a vision last night that I'll fail the ICND1 exam by one point because I memorized the wrong answer on one of these practice exams.
    Memorizing Answers?!?!?! Yep -- that's definitely a nightmare!!

    The Cisco exams aren't "memorization exams" -- there aren't 100 factoids you need to learn and spit back out on an exam.

    While there are only a few ways to question someone to find out if they know what the OSI Model Layer 3 is/does -- most of the question on legitimate practice exams will not be the same as questions on the real exam. If they are, then you've used a "****" which is cheating.

    Real practice exams tend to be harder than the real exam since they may not tell you the number of answers required (the real exam does -- choose 3 or choose 2). The may also have question formats that aren't on the real exam.

    Practice Exams are supposed to help you identify your weak areas so that you can go back and study the topics again (or more in depth). And even the process of getting a wrong answer or not selecting all the correct answers is a learning experience. When you miss picking the 3rd or 4th correct answer on a practice exam out of all the options given, you may actually remember all 4 correct options and be able to pick 2 of them out as correct answers on a real exam question.

    Oh, I guess I should mention that there may be some "trivia" on ICND1 that is memorization.... but it makes more sense later on as you move up the Cisco Knowledge/Job Food Chain and actually use it....
    :mike: Cisco Certifications -- Collect the Entire Set!
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  • /usr/usr Member Posts: 1,768 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Just curious, but are you all using the current Boson practice exams? I used them for ICND1 and found them quite helpful and well thought out. The explanations of all the questions was nice to study, also.
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  • sjcatsjcat Member Posts: 10 ■□□□□□□□□□
    just the boson router sim, not the exams though. I guess I should have gotten those instead. Unfortunately it's too late, I'll be taking the exam Sat.
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  • sjcatsjcat Member Posts: 10 ■□□□□□□□□□
    sjcat wrote: »
    just the boson router sim, not the exams though. I guess I should have gotten those instead. Unfortunately it's too late, I'll be taking the exam Sat.

    Ok, I just passed the ICND1 today. I have no animosity for the practice exam writers anymore!
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  • mikej412mikej412 Member Posts: 10,086 ■■■■■■■■■■
    sjcat wrote: »
    passed the ICND1
    Congratulations!! icon_cheers.gif

    Good Luck with your ICND2 studies icon_study.gif
    :mike: Cisco Certifications -- Collect the Entire Set!
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