Advice needed on 640-816 3rd attempt

cjthedj45

Hello everyone,

I wanted to get some opinons if possible. I passed Icnd1 first time but Icnd2 is causing me a few issues. I took Icnd2 the first time and got 700 2nd time I got 807 so just missed by what must have been 1 or 2 questions. As I was so close and have all the material fresh in my head I was thinking of booking the third attempt as soon as possible. I failed the exam last Friday and have not done any study since. However my plan of attack would be to review the areas I was weak on starting tomorrow and then use the whole weekend to study then take the exam next Tuesday the 28th. Would any of you do it any different I.E take a longer time to review the material or just go for it??

Any opinons and advice are really appreciated.

Thanks

cerberos

I don't know cjthedj45, but ur question is a little tricky... Did u give it enough time? Do u feel urself ready for the test? Doing well with ur Lab? When u failed the test, were u rushing on answers or giving urself enough time to understand what the question really means and wants? Are u good on subnetting? As u see, alot of questions u need to be honest with urself to answer it... If not prepared, then give urself enough time until u feel it's time... Far to expect, but do u calm down on the exam or u feel to nervous which leads u to unexpected results?... Got real equipments for ur Lab or using Simulators? Believe me, Labing much will make u do well on ur exam... If money is not affordable for now, use GNS3.

Xenz

Only you can really answer this question. The time thing will not matter one bit of you do not understand the material covered. What exactly are you weak on? What did you use to prepare for the exam?

On a scale of 1 - 10 as far as my familiarity with the content, I'd probably rank most of it 8, maybe a couple subjects were 7 and others were 10 when I took the test. I scored a 972. If you can remember weaknesses with most of the objectives, then I would go over it before taking again. Around here the CCNA will get you a couple calls, but for the most part it's not worth much in my area. Is it worth spending the $125 over and over to attempt the test when you know your chance to pass is whether you get lucky that day?

Your improvement from 700 to 800 is good, but you're playing the coin toss game since you said you didn't do much review since the last time you took it. My guess on your weaknesses are:
STP
Frame-Relay

I'll give you EIGRP/OSPF. If you can say you are weak on 2/4 subjects I just listed I'd take a couple weeks to review.

cjthedj45

Cerberos and Xenz,

Thanks for your reply's. I think the first time I failed was due to not being fully prepared but I thought I would take a chance as I had the comeback voucher I should have really put the exam back but I run out of time. The 2nd time I think several factors played a part. Firstly I was very nervous because the week I took the exam I was being trained by the senior network engineer and my manager and everyone was in expecting me to walk through the door saying I passed. The 2nd was the time issue becuase I was nervous I kept reading the question to check i understood and this cost me expecially as the longer questions were all at the end so I had to take an educated guess on a few of the questions. On my first fail I realised that I did not know nearly enough about Wans so I made sure I did this time and I got a 100% and I did well in Vlans but the others areas where like 66% each. I do feel i know the material my preperation is shown below.

Global Knowledge 5 day icnd 2 course
I watched the CBT's to death and walked through Labs with Jeremy
Used Packet tracer and setup STP, Trunks, Vlans, Ospf, Eigrp,Frame Relay, ACL, Static Routes
Made Review notes on flash cards for quick review
Used practice exams and questions I got wrong I used my cisco press books to research the answer.

To be honest I'm really tempted to go for it again as I'm sure the factors above played a part. I think this time though I will tell my colleagues I have dentist appointment as this will reduce the pressure.

Xenz

cjthedj45 wrote: »

The 2nd was the time issue becuase I was nervous I kept reading the question to check i understood and this cost me expecially as the longer questions were all at the end so I had to take an educated guess on a few of the questions. On my first fail I realised that I did not know nearly enough about Wans so I made sure I did this time and I got a 100% and I did well in Vlans but the others areas where like 66% each. I do feel i know the material my preperation is shown below.

Global Knowledge 5 day icnd 2 course
I watched the CBT's to death and walked through Labs with Jeremy
Used Packet tracer and setup STP, Trunks, Vlans, Ospf, Eigrp,Frame Relay, ACL, Static Routes
Made Review notes on flash cards for quick review
Used practice exams and questions I got wrong I used my cisco press books to research the answer.

The 5 day boot camp is not a good idea. CBT's are fine so long as you understand the theory and you're not just copying what he does in the video.

Using a test and looking up the answer is not fully understanding how things work.

My prep was self teaching mostly. I did the Cisco Academy for 3 semesters, Cisco 1 was easy, Cisco 2 I just got access to the course materials and did both Discovery and Exploration on my own. Cisco 3 got access to the materials and self taught. I use Transcender software, and I always test until I get 80% before looking at the answers to the questions I missed.

One thing I think that no one focuses well on, be it books, the cisco academy, or prep software; No one focuses on troubleshooting. What happens when something is configured wrong? This is very good practice that I think everyone overlooks. You can memorize IOS commands, but to say that you fully know the content would be the ability to work both forwards and backwards through it.

I would personally wait a bit to take it again, but I'm poor and I'd rather not dish out another $125 until I felt very comfortable.