Faild with 682

andrew1

Hi all,

Failed last friday with 682 only answered 41 out of 60 questions.
The math 41/60x100=68.2% tells me all answers were correct.
Unfortunatly time wasting is where I failed.
I was under the impresion that the exam was so difficult and they try to trick you, that I spent too much time triple and quad checking every question and answer, big mistake. I was also nervous and sure that every question had a trick to it. The fact is the exam questions I saw where no more dificult than the prac exams you see around.

You get roughly around 1 minute per question excluding sims, which is plenty of time as some questions should only take seconds to answer. But if like me you don't click next when you know the answer your just wasting time.

For the exam I read todd's and Cisco's books. Didn't do enough prac questions on subnetting or access-lists I can do them, just need to be faster, wasted most of my time in the exam on these. Continualy rereading and recalculating my answers, obviously wasting lots of time.

Some tips: the exam questions aren't that hard, if you can pass transcender, boson or others with high scores you can pass this exam. I don't mean if you do them 100 times and remember the answers by hart, but the level of difficulty and scope is on par with these prac exams. Keep in mine though I only saw 41 questions and failed the exam. I have done MS exams and passed them first time, don't listerning to people saying how hard exams are it just puts you off.

When sitting the exam take the time during the tutorial to write out a subnet table as this will save you heaps time when these questions come up. Also make sure the maker pen they give you works, mine stopped working and it took almost five minuite for them to get of the phone and find another one.

Write out this or simler:

H S | Subs | Hosts
7 1 128 | 0 | 126
6 2 192 | 2 | 62
5 3 224 | 6 | 30
4 4 240 | 14 | 14
3 5 248 | 30 | 6
2 6 252 | 62 | 2
1 7 254 | 128 | 0

I also wrote all the powers of 2 up to 14 and when I take the exam again next week, I will write down 16x table up to 224.

Lastly to the question when am I ready to sit the exam? For mine it's when I can answer most questions fast or know why I got it wrong.

Hope this helps someone then my $240 AUD wasn't just wasted on me.

Webmaster

Hi Andrew,

No need to be embarrassed, happens to the best of us. Nerves can play a big part once you paid a couple of hundred bucks and sit in the exam room.

It's important to remember at that time, that you scheduled the exam because you think you can pass it. Stick by that, have confidence in your knowledge, and don't drink any coffee before the exam. Although with the high passing score of the CCNA you're not aiming for perfect anyway, but the passing score does allow you to miss a couple of questions

I'm not sure about your calculation however, Cisco exams are usually not scored on a 0-1000 scale, mostly you get 300 just for sitting the exam. Not sure about the CCNA though..., anyway you definitely seem to be ready.

I second your opinion about Transcender.

Good luck next week!