Just missed passing ICND2 by 1 question

Jackace

I just missed passing my ICND2 exam today by 1 question (24 points) according to the proctor. That really sucks. I have already re-scheduled it for the earliest time I could make work. I will try and brush up on my weak areas and take it again in 2 weeks. I'm most frustrated with the fact that many of the questions and possible answers seem to be designed just to trip you up, and with no way to double check many things are left to pure memorization.

ptilsen

That's rough, but just study and reschedule. I'd even take it in a week, if I were you. You were so close that you will very likely pass.

Jackace

There are no dates available at the testing center that I can make due to work. Otherwise I would take it again next week.

CodeBlox

I felt like I was really pressed for time on this exam for sure. Had 15 minutes left when I was done. You'll get it next time!

Jackace

I too felt a little rushed. I took all the time they gave me to finish, but I still felt that many of the questions and answers were worded in such a way just to confuse you or make you second guess yourself. I know now after the test that I missed a few of those questions because I just could not remember the commands. I got too used to using ? and tab all the time that I could not remember the exact order or naming of some of the commands when they were in a multiple choice question.

CodeBlox

That may be key here. I did a lot of practice making my own topologies and if they didn't work, I sat and figured out what I was doing wrong. This forced me to be familiar with the command format. ? and tab did work in the exam center for me though. The other thing is you should be able to subnet quickly.

Jackace

I have no problems sub-netting and yes ? and tab worked on the sims, but when you are given a multiple choice question you can't verify which of the 2-3 very similar options is the correct one. I too made a lot of practice labs, but I relied on ? and tab too much without paying enough attention to the syntax and structure of the commands. I will go back and do them again and this time I will pay more attention to the structure and syntax of the commands. I missed at least 2 questions because of this alone.

CodeBlox

I can see where you're coming from. The other thing is that they disable some commands so it's good to know multiple ways to get the same information. I had several commands rejected by the exams simlet because the "command was not supported by the version of IOS". I knew several ways to get the same info though. Ex: "show cdp neighbor detail" vs "show cdp entry [hostname]" Both give the same info but the latter was not supported by the IOS on the exam.

Jackace

Yep the test is about networking topics but it is also about doing it the Cisco way. I knew that going in, but it still surprised me a little. I will get it next time though.

binargs

word of advice, don't take it asap.
i failed my icdn by 2 questions, and i was gonna take it asap, but the miore i restudy the less confidence i have.
because at the point of restudy you should already know most topics but i found the more material i read, the more different material i use, i was consistantly learning new stuff and didn't know, up until about 2 hours ago i did not know that osfp routers have 8 states. and i can't remember more than 2 way, init, full, and loading......

material used:
odom book 2nd edition, went back to barnes and noble and read the 3rd edition
ccna exam cram 3rd edition practice questions
cisco website test module, 1-8
ccna flash card 3rd edition. <--- made some topics insanely deep
packet tracer network sims
gns3 tooling.

taking exam hopefully tomorrow after delaying it 6 times. i just studied for 6 hours straight, head is about to explode.

Jackace

Took it again as soon as I could and passed this time. Now comes the hard part of finding a networking job and getting out of help desk and desktop support.

LinuxRacr

Congrats!

Slowhand

Congratulations on the pass. What's next on the agenda, aside from finding a new gig with your brand-new networking-street-cred?

Jackace

I would really like to go farther in Networking and work on the CCNP, but I would really like to have a job in Networking first.

JustFred

Nicely done. Good luck on the job hunt, you should be able to find something soon

Jackace

FredWatanabe wrote: »

Nicely done. Good luck on the job hunt, you should be able to find something soon

I hope so, but I'm not too optimistic in my current location. It's just too small and not a lot of job postings for entry level networking. Everyone wants senior level people not junior level people.

DANMOH009

Ye good luck mate,

And thanks for starting the post, its little key bits of information like this that put me in the right direction for revising.

Thanks and good luck.