the ? in exams

as i passed icnd 2 today i wonder if you are not allowed to use the help function in exams anymore

when i took icnd 1 there was an issue with the software and no help was available, today they didnt say anything about any issues but ? produced an empty space again

i didnt care much, since i spent the last week in packet tracer and knew my stuff pretty well...

just asking if this is a general politic now or ist it just a crappy test center?

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Comments

SdotLow

Pretty sure discussing what people have seen on the actual exam is against the NDA.

martell1000

pretty sure that this issue is NOT part of the NDA

when i started my studies in cisco it was kind common sense that ? is available in the exams...

last time they saif "usually it is available but not today - should you fail because of that vue will give you a free shot"

today they said nothing and ? didnt work

martell1000

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/thread/2402?start=15&tstart=0

seems to be a known issue

maybe i should complain and get a free voucher?!

pham0329

I'm not sure what you're referring to so I'm kind of curious. There's a help function in the exam? I've never seen in. What does it do or suppose to do?

cyberguypr

pham0329 wrote: »

I'm not sure what you're referring to so I'm kind of curious. There's a help function in the exam? I've never seen in. What does it do or suppose to do?

He's talking about the help command within IOS: router>show ip ?

I'm trying to live without it in my lab just to be safe on the test.

SdotLow

martell1000 wrote: »

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/thread/2402?start=15&tstart=0

seems to be a known issue

maybe i should complain and get a free voucher?!

Interesting. It looks like everyone in that thread that got a voucher failed though. I'd complain to get a free ICND2 voucher. I remember hitting ? on my exam and not having it do anything. I was under the impression is removed, much like I had been warned in the study material that "show run" would be removed from certain things.

martell1000

if i would have failed i would complain for sure.
seems like an issue which is common outside the us ...

checked the keyboard - it was US encoded - but ? didnt work

tab key worked fine also - so i guess it might be a local configuration problem with the testcenters outside the US kayboard range...

hiddenknight821

I'm not trying to suggest anything against the NDA, but maybe it's like one of the simulators problems like PT, Labsim, or the Network Simulator from Pearson Education, where you can't get ALL of the commands. For example, in PT, you can't do "show spanning-tree" command. Maybe it's the same idea except that when you take the test, and they expect you to know the command that will answer the problem, they won't even suggest it by letting you use the help command. I'm not sure if this is true, but if the help command works at the enable prompt alone, then it must be the problem that I just said.

martell1000

dont think so.

i issued a "do show x" command also from global config mode and the simulator comes up with an "that is not supportet" message ...

pham0329

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

I'm not trying to suggest anything against the NDA, but maybe it's like one of the simulators problems like PT, Labsim, or the Network Simulator from Pearson Education, where you can't get ALL of the commands. For example, in PT, you can't do "show spanning-tree" command. Maybe it's the same idea except that when you take the test, and they expect you to know the command that will answer the problem, they won't even suggest it by letting you use the help command. I'm not sure if this is true, but if the help command works at the enable prompt alone, then it must be the problem that I just said.

I dunno, that would be pretty dumb. You can know how to configure something without knowing the exact command. For example, I don't think I can tell you the exact command to configure NAT on the top of my head

hiddenknight821

pham0329 wrote: »

I dunno, that would be pretty dumb. You can know how to configure something without knowing the exact command. For example, I don't think I can tell you the exact command to configure NAT on the top of my head

Don't you mean can't?

Anyway, for the testing purpose, I don't think it's dumb at all since I can understand that. This is a good way to get rid of braindumpers. We should be able to do everything off the top of our heads after doing excessive practices and reviews before taking the exam. No one should take the exam that lightly. Not even someone who works with Cisco equipments for 5+ year before taking his first CCNA exam. He should brush up on some of the missing area that he hasn't touched in ages before tackling that thing.

martell1000

i would have no problem if they would say that ? is disabled - but if that is the case it should be clear and valid for everyone and not a technical issue outside the us ...

kinda feels strange answering hardcore tech questions for a company that has a buggy test engine ...