CCNA Exam in 2 Weeks - What Surprised You?

Hi, all.

I'm going to be tackling the full CCNA on the 30th and I want to make sure that I'm not missing out on any important areas of study.

For those who have taken the exam, did you find that there were difficult questions on topics that were surprising?

I've noticed that some people mentioned that there was more IPv6 than they expected. What else should I really know forwards and backwards that perhaps isn't obvious?

I am definitely not feeling too confident on OSPF, EIGRP, NAT, Frame Relay and ACLs quite yet, so I am going to hit those areas hard at least, but I am sure there is room for improvement in other areas as well.

Thanks in advance for any help!

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Comments

zrockstar

I haven't taken the CCNA yet, but it sounds like if you are not confident in OSPF, EIGRP, NAT, Frame Relay, and ACLs, that you would probably be better off taking the ICND1 now, or maybe postponing your composite to a later date. If neither of those are an option, at least you have 2 weeks, and should probably lock yourself away and study about 8 hours a day. The areas that you are lacking are pretty much the core of the ICND2. Like I said, I haven't taken the test yet, but I have studied a lot for it and about it and I have a feeling that the guys who have taken the composite will probably echo what I am saying.

matt333

Learn OSPF, EIGRP, NAT, Frame Relay and ACLs they are going to be on the exam, you cannot pass without that knowledge. Basically those 5 topics are about 70% of the exam if not more. reschedule sounds like a good option, you don't want to fail and have to spend the money again

Alexf302

When I say I'm not fully confident, I mean that I have a strong foundation on each of the topics, but I wouldn't feel ready if I were to take the exam right this minute. Those are the topics that I intend to really focus on over the next couple of weeks. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I would be anywhere near starting from scratch on those subjects.

matt333

Alexf302 wrote: »

I've noticed that some people mentioned that there was more IPv6 than they expected. What else should I really know forwards and backwards that perhaps isn't obvious?

ACLs and switches are definitely something you need to know, make sure you know how they work. applying ACLs and what they look like standard & extended, how they affect traffic. switches all the exam obj's and VTP are all tested throughout the exam

4_lom

I had a few questions that were not covered in the exam objectives. Mainly relating to general management of devices. Can't give you the exact questions because of the NDA. These are things you should know regardless of whether or not they are on the exam. Imagine you were a technician for a network with Cisco devices, what kinds of commands would you want to know for everyday maintenance and logging?

lantech

Watch not only how the questions are worded but how the answers are worded as well. I think there were definatly a couple of questions that while the questions were straight forward the answers weren't worded all that well.

certmister

Everyone is going to tell you something different, usually the topics that they were weak on at the time. I did the two exam path and the CCENT was okay but the ICND2 exam was and still is a huge challenge. God like subnetting skills and speedy gonzalez time management would be my advice.

FYI, I got the CCENT in 2 tries having just missed the first attempt by 5 points. I am still chasing the CCNA a year later, and I have taken it 4 times, latest attempt was 2 weeks ago and I was 7 Points short.

I started using the exam blueprint to focus my study after the 3rd fail. There's a lot of detail in the CCNA and with 50 odd questions they can't test you on everything and asking myself if I can do the topics in the exam blueprint has really improved my study.

If you have a solid understanding of the basics, your time management and subnetting is good then I would lab everything I could before the test, starting with Routing and WANs. If you're weak on Routing then you should give yourself more time before the test.

CodeBlox

Alexf302 wrote: »

I am definitely not feeling too confident on OSPF, EIGRP, NAT, Frame Relay and ACLs quite yet, so I am going to hit those areas hard at least, but I am sure there is room for improvement in other areas as well.

Those things are going to be on the exam for sure and you should know them. Some of it even combined in some of the questions so if I were you, I'd get busy!