Another question about how the sims work

I know there have been many, hopefully you have enough patience for one more.

In going through various practice exam engines, I've noticed that their simulation questions many times restrict you to one and only one path. Anything you try to execute that isn't part of their pre-canned answer comes up as an "invalid command". In a scenario for configuring inter vlan routing using sub-interfaces for instance, I've gotten into the habit from the simulation labs of removing the ip address from the interface and making sure it is up as part of the configuration routine for the sub-interfaces.

Router#configure terminal
Router#(config)#interface fastethernet 0/1
Router#(config-if)#no ip address
Router#(config-if)#no shutdown
Router#(config-if)#interface fastethernet 0/1.2
Router#(config-subif)#encapsulation dot1q 2
Router#(config-subif)#ip address 10.1.2.1 255.255.255.0
Router#(config-subif)#exit
Router#(config-if)#interface fastethernet 0/1.3
Router#(config-subif)#encapsulation dot1q 3
Router#(config-subif)#ip address 10.1.3.1 255.255.255.0
Router#(config-subif)#

In the practice test, the magenta colored commands shown came back as invalid and the answer was scored wrong.

I'm not sweating the practice exams as I know what's going on and can determine whether what I'm doing is right or wrong, but can anyone confirm or deny whether the 802 exam sims would let this type of "supplemental" configuration be included without failing the answer?

I tend to include things by habit if it can possibly prevent a conflict and hearing something I know to be ok is "invalid" makes me second guess and slows me down.

Thanks

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peanutnoggin

KPWright wrote: »

I know there have been many, hopefully you have enough patience for one more.

In going through various practice exam engines, I've noticed that their simulation questions many times restrict you to one and only one path. Anything you try to execute that isn't part of their pre-canned answer comes up as an "invalid command". In a scenario for configuring inter vlan routing using sub-interfaces for instance, I've gotten into the habit from the simulation labs of removing the ip address from the interface and making sure it is up as part of the configuration routine for the sub-interfaces.

Router#configure terminal
Router#(config)#interface fastethernet 0/1
Router#(config-if)#no ip address
Router#(config-if)#no shutdown
Router#(config-if)#interface fastethernet 0/1.2
Router#(config-subif)#encapsulation dot1q 2
Router#(config-subif)#ip address 10.1.2.1 255.255.255.0
Router#(config-subif)#exit
Router#(config-if)#interface fastethernet 0/1.3
Router#(config-subif)#encapsulation dot1q 3
Router#(config-subif)#ip address 10.1.3.1 255.255.255.0
Router#(config-subif)#

In the practice test, the magenta colored commands shown came back as invalid and the answer was scored wrong.

I'm not sweating the practice exams as I know what's going on and can determine whether what I'm doing is right or wrong, but can anyone confirm or deny whether the 802 exam sims would let this type of "supplemental" configuration be included without failing the answer?

I tend to include things by habit if it can possibly prevent a conflict and hearing something I know to be ok is "invalid" makes me second guess and slows me down.

Thanks

KP,

I would think that only an employee of Cisco would know that answer. The exams do not give you an idea of how well you did on sims, questions, etc... the exam will break down how well you did in certain areas (i.e. subnetting, routing protocols, etc...). Because of this, I think you'll be hard pressed to know. What I would say to you is this... If you know the material, you've studied, have hands on, have completed a lot of practice tests... adding a few commands during a sim will not prevent you from passing the exam. Good luck.

HTH,

~Peanut

KPWright

Thanks for the reply PeanutNoggin

I appreciate that you won't know whether it made the answer wrong or not, sorry that my question clouded the issue.

Have you (or anyone else) ever had a perfectly good command "rejected" by the cert exam sims (for clarification it did not accept the CLI entry), or do they just tend to respond just as the IOS would? I'm just trying to see if anyone has experienced the kind of limitation I'm seeing in the practice test engines on the actual test. If so, I need to start re-training my fingers

thanks

Forsaken_GA

That's something we can't really disclose, as it goes towards answering about the content of the exam itself.

Your best bet is to study the proper way to do it and just know it so it's a moot question. if the sim on the exam does reject the command you're trying to do, it would be a good indication that you're barking up the wrong tree, but if you're configuring what they're asking for properly, it's not a situation you'll run into.

dynamik

My understanding (and I believe I've seen this in my study materials, so I don't think it's an NDA violation) is that the sims don't care if you perform any extra configuration. As long as you take care of whatever objective you're given, that should be all that matters.