Practicing Lab Questions

Jackace

Hi all I'm newly registered here, but I have been reading the forum for a couple months now. I have 2 questions that have sort of been answered on the forums, but I was looking for some increased clarification. I see lots of talk about "dumping" and Cisco calls it cheating. With that in mind my questions are:

1) How is a person supposed to practice what they studied if you can't take practice tests? I guess I'm having a hard time drawing the line between what is "dumping" and what is legit preparation. I see lots of places offering hundreds of CCNA practice questions are those considered dumping? What about the websites that give you multiple subnetting questions to solve, for practice, are they considered cheating?

2) What is the best method for preparing for the simulator questions and getting experience with troubleshooting problems in a network? Again practice questions or practice networks seem like the best option, but are those considered cheating too?

fly351

Jackace wrote: »

Hi all I'm newly registered here, but I have been reading the forum for a couple months now. I have 2 questions that have sort of been answered on the forums, but I was looking for some increased clarification. I see lots of talk about "dumping" and Cisco calls it cheating. With that in mind my questions are:

1) How is a person supposed to practice what they studied if you can't take practice tests? I guess I'm having a hard time drawing the line between what is "dumping" and what is legit preparation. I see lots of places offering hundreds of CCNA practice questions are those considered dumping? What about the websites that give you multiple subnetting questions to solve, for practice, are they considered cheating?

2) What is the best method for preparing for the simulator questions and getting experience with troubleshooting problems in a network? Again practice questions or practice networks seem like the best option, but are those considered cheating too?

1. Dumping is usually questions from the actual exams, or closely matched to the exam. A practice exam is one thing; using it to test your strengths/weaknesses. Using a **** for trying to memorize the test in order to pass without actually knowing the material... that is in violation of the certifications and also contributes to giving IT guys a bad name. Imagine a Doctor just goes and takes a 2000 question test and gets a MD without going through interns, school, or residencies and then goes out to practice medicine.

Subnetting is just math, there isn't much to **** lol. My advice... learn block sizes, and powers of 2 (2 ^ 1, 2 ^ 2.... 2 ^ 16). Check out this site to practice your subnetting: subnettingquestions.com - Free Subnetting Questions and Answers Randomly Generated Online

2. Practice practice practice! There are usually lab books or material that comes with your CCNA books that will help you prepare. Packet Tracer is helpful for passing your CCNA.

Jackace

Thanks for the reply. I have been using that subnetting site for awhile now. Was just wondering if I was cheating by using it.

So what are some legit practice tests that aren't considered dumping?

fly351

Well I used preplogic.com for my CCNA. I won't use any practice tests again, but at the time I just felt that I didn't know what I was getting into (harder exams). A lot of people I have seen here use Boson.com

alan2308

If you have any question as to the legitimacy of a site, you can use Certguard to verify it.

The CCNA FAQ thread is full of great resources for studying.