questions about the ccent exam..

ok, i need some help here. i attended the year long cisco ccna networking academy program at my local community college. i passed with a cumulative gpa of 3.8, i take the boson exam and regularly get high 90's to 100%. yet today i have failed the ccent exam for the 3rd time with my highest score so far of a 775.

i'm sure i memorized the some of the 161 boson exam questions, but i also knew why i got the answers correct because i would explain it to myself in my head as i went along. "ok this/these is/are the correct answer/s because..." i did this on the exam too "this is the correct answer and not the others because..."

in each time i have taken the exam, there was a bunch of questions that contained material i have never seen before in the book or in any of my research. i cant give specifics due to the paper i signed before taking the test however, but they were ugly. maybe they were the 10 seeded ones? i dont know.

i also work as a part time networking intern at one of our local school systems, i am not allowed to touch our cisco equipment because all that type of work is contracted out to the isp. basically, i just make cables, run cables through ceilings, and make new drops. Or sometimes install new AP's, or help with minor connectivity problems. so i dont have the opportunity to learn what i'm doing wrong when it comes to this cisco stuff.

i only want CCNA so i can take the CCNA security exam (i am already enrolled for the course that starts next week) eventually, i want do get my CISSP and work in network security but this ccent exam is stonewalling me. i have 7 other certifications, and am a full time engineering student.

What am i doing wrong? any ideas or thoughts? i feel i know this stuff inside and out but i cant seem to pass the exam, and this is supposed to be the EASY one

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mikej412

liz p. wrote: »

What am i doing wrong?

Your score report should have a breakdown that matches up with the topics listed in the ICND1 exam blueprint. That should give you an idea of the topics you may need work on.

liz p.

thank you, yes i saw that down the bottom of my report printout however it just raises more questions. i know my subnetting was correct and checked it twice, i had plenty of time so i slowed down and made sure everything was as it should be. Yet on my score it said 57% for "implementing an ip addressing scheme.."
i know you're thinking 'well you must have did it wrong' but i really dont think i did. again the math was checked twice, and subnetting really hasnt been a problem for me (calculus class yes, subnetting no)

i scored 100% on the security part -which i am happy for since thats where i want to end up. but at this point i have to ask myself, is this really worth spending any more money or time on? Some of the questions on the Boson exam i've noticed they expect you to be almost like mind reader. in specific it has a question with two completely valid correct answers <i>and it says so in the answer</i> with no one answer any better than the other, they just wanted A instead of B. i can look it up and type it here if you'd like for better clarification, i know it helps sometimes to see what a person is talking about. i just cant help but wonder if cisco is playing the same game.

i'm just stunned as to how i can do so well in the class, the final exams (which were hell), and the boson test which is supposed to be the best of them, and fail 3 times. i feel like an idiot.

mikej412

liz p. wrote: »

Yet on my score it said 57% for "implementing an ip addressing scheme.."

"Implementing" could also be one of the SIM questions -- and SIMs are worth more points than the multiple guess questions.

liz p. wrote: »

i can look it up and type it here if you'd like for better clarification, i know it helps sometimes to see what a person is talking about.

You got to start somewhere if you're going to beat this thing -- so this is as good a spot as any. Is it a question from the CD that comes with Odom's Cisco Press ICND1 book? Or did you buy the Boson Practice Test(s) from Boson?

Which courses did you take -- Discovery or Exploration?

liz p.

we used Cisco's CCENT/CCNA ICND1 official Exam Certification Guide, 2nd edition by Odom. Included with the book, was the Boson Exam.

The courses i took were ITN 154, 155, 156, 157 through our local community college that has the Cisco Networking Academy program. Each class was 8 weeks (so two semesters, thus a full year) and each course was 4 credits. (the highest level that can be assigned). As far as discovery or exploration i have no idea. would my netacad account give that information? if so, i can look that up for you

mikej412

The Academy had it's own training material available online -- but you could optionally buy the books. There had been talk about skipping the online material and just going to book form -- but I didn't think it had happened yet.

The Exploration/Discovery were two confusing versions of the material that would supposedly take people at different skill levels and get them to the same point where they could/should pass the CCNA exam.

If they went with Odom's books it's a GREAT Choice. Odom's Cisco Press CCNA Certification Library (the ICND1 and ICND2 book bundle) are the main books we recommend here to self-study for the CCNA, along with Todd's Sybex CCNA Book.

The test engine that comes with the Cisco Press books is the Boson Test Engine -- but the author/Cisco Press comes up with the questions. Boson does sell additional practice exams on their web site.

Go ahead and post the question and I'm sure the members here will talk you through it (or point you to the link if it's already been talked about).

liz p.

yes, we used the library icnd 1 & icnd 2. they split it into two semesters. icnd1 was for courses itn 154 & 155, icnd 2 was for 156 & 157. my degree is in engineering so all my cisco courses are electives. i just figured since network security is where i want to be, and cisco ownes 75% +/- of the networking world, i'd better be familiar with it.

i'll go through the boson exam tomorrow, it will take a while to find the question going through one by one. i just need to know if ccna is really worth all this. at this point it doesnt seem like how much you know, but how lucky you are that day. a good deal of the questions i've had were just crazy things such as telnet and some code associated with it like >F9 * &< x and then you hit resume what happens? i have no idea

i hope it doesnt blow up or something! but either way, its not in the book. or the different steps of DHCPGHOST, DCHPSERV, etc.. thats not in the book either.. and because i still havent passed i cant help but feel they are using these crazy questions as actual questions. i obviously went wrong somewhere, i just dont see where, and that makes me frustrated.

The sims seemed ok i pulled the data up quickly with the correct commands, placed in what it wanted, and was onto the next question.

i got alot of 'read the output'. those were easy because the answer is IN the output.

subnetting was no problem, it was simple subnetting, not even its more evil twin vlsm which can sometimes make me want to poke my eye out but hey, i feel that way about all things math. its not difficult, just a pain in the rear. (its not even calculus, now that stuffs hard!)

there was a couple of testlets, one i remember thinking "well, what is it you want?" because the questions seemed too ambiguous. and i know i bit a big one when i couldnt map out the wan protocols with their matching ugh "stuff" (am trying not to be too specific). but overall i thought i'd done really well....and now feel like i'm bashing my head on a brick wall...

i guess the million dollar question would be; is it really worth it? or do i have to fly to ireland and kiss the blarney stone for some more luck first?

SephStorm

my question would be, do you understand what you are doing? I've taken CCNA 1&2 through CNA, so it is completely possible to pass without true understanding. Have you used Packet Tracer on your own to do labs?

liz p.

i like to think that i know what i'm doing but at this point i have to wonder.

i do have packet tracer, but i prefer to use my own lab equipment. its older equipment, but it works. i couldnt afford the nicer things like 1841's & 2960's (i mean really who can?) we had in class but i do have a 48 port 3500xl switch, and for routers a 2501, & a 3600 i purchased from a guy going for ccie that he had no use for. he'd already updated them to ver 12.2 (i hear the new stuff has ver 15 now) they have serial wan cables instead of the v.35 we had in class but everything seemed to work just fine. when i do a lab that needed multiple switches i just vlan'd the 48 port the 3500. i really cant buy anymore equipment, i have to make do with what i have. if i need more than 2 routers i do it in packet tracer. in a perfect world i'd have bookoo bucks i could buy all nice shiny new stuff, with v.35 cables and wic2t cards.

packet tracer is ok, but likes to crash on me. and i've noticed it can be buggy.

generally what i would do is practice something new until i had it down, then use what i know to try and 'break' it and see what happens. packet tracer sometimes will just freeze up or crash, but on real equipment you get to see what actually will happen. thats how i learned about flapping interface statuses before we learned about it in the book. (obviously i wouldnt do that on a test)

tech-airman

liz p. wrote: »

we used Cisco's CCENT/CCNA ICND1 official Exam Certification Guide, 2nd edition by Odom. Included with the book, was the Boson Exam.

The courses i took were ITN 154, 155, 156, 157 through our local community college that has the Cisco Networking Academy program. Each class was 8 weeks (so two semesters, thus a full year) and each course was 4 credits. (the highest level that can be assigned). As far as discovery or exploration i have no idea. would my netacad account give that information? if so, i can look that up for you

liz,

Based on a web search for the courses ITN 154, 155, 156, and 157 it looks like you were under the CCNA Exploration curriculum. The CCNA Exploration curriculum is geared towards the single CCNA 640-802 CCNA certification exam therefore you'd need to separate (subnet, networking humor attempted) the Cisco Networking Academy material into the 640-822 ICND1 certification exam material and the 640-816 ICND2 certification exam material.

The CCNA Discovery curriculum is geared towards the two exam route (pun intended) towards CCNA certification. Under the CCNA Discovery curriculum, the "Networking for Home and Small Businesses" course and the "Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or ISP" course are geared towards the 640-822 ICND1 certification exam.

So I would recommend reviewing the "Networking for Home and Small Businesses" course material and the "Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or ISP" course material in the Cisco Networking Academy website to specifically try to pass the 640-822 ICND1 certification exam.

To view the abovementioned course materials:

Login to the Cisco Networking Academy website at http://cisco.netacad.net
At the homepage after you login, on the right column under "Resources" click on _Course Materials_
On the following webpage, there should be a drop down menu that says "* Select Curriculum." Click on the down arrow on the right and select "CCNA Discovery"
After selecting "CCNA Discovery", on the drop down menu below "CCNA Discovery", click on the down arrow on the right and select "Networking for Home and Small Businesses"
After selecting "Networking for Home and Small Businesses", select the latest version for the course in the box below.
Click the [Submit] button.
Review course at your leisure.

Repeat the above for the "Working at a Small-to-Medium Businesss or ISP" course.

Did this help you?

liz p.

i will certainly try that, thank you! i didnt know those resources were available. with a few exceptions, we almost never used the netacad account