Took ICND 1 - CCENT exam today...

shellee1983

Well, I took the test today and it was horrible. I've studying an array of materials for 2 months strait and bombed this exam pretty badly. I'm not sure if the materials I have were just terrible or what. I'm going to attempt this exam again in 2 weeks I do not have time to waste. Everyone said to study subnetting so I spent an ungodly amount of time studying that only to have 3 out of 50 questions on the exam be about subnetting. What killed me were the simulation simlett questions. The answers they gave and the commands allowed (the ones I knew anyway) were so out there that I knew I had failed the exam by question 10. So enough complaining. I need to take this exam in 2 weeks I need help.

Can anyone tell me of a good simulator to practice on or where I can get a tutor? Any response would be appreciated.

Nytrocide

I bought the Boson Ex-Sim and NetSim and that worked wonders for me. Lucky, because they're actually having a 25% off sale right now too. It costs a little...but worth it. I'll be buying the CCNA material and maybe more over the weekend.

If you need a tutor, feel free to message me and I'll be more than glad to do what I can

TheIdeaMan

Hey shellee1983 what where the materials that you used for studying?

bbarrick

Boson has these Courseware Kits I was thinking about buying. They come with the 100-101 upgrade when it comes out.

Courseware Cisco Curriculum & Lab Guide

shellee1983

TheIdeaMan wrote: »

Hey shellee1983 what where the materials that you used for studying?

I used the ODOM CCENT book - not helpful

Website for subnetting

the simulators in the ODOM book

Practice tests on the Cisco Site

**** sheets for the commands (CLI)

CBT nuggets videos and the Odom Videos

I think the downfall was being cheap and not buying the Netsim stuff because right away I was hit with 2 sims before question 10 and the commands I was familiar with obviously didn't give me the info I needed.

NetworkVeteran

shellee1983 wrote: »

I think the downfall was being cheap and not buying the Netsim stuff because right away I was hit with 2 sims before question 10 and the commands I was familiar with obviously didn't give me the info I needed.

Sounds like it. All you really need is one book (Odom or Lammle depending on your tastes) and some time labbing (Netsim, Packet Tracer, GNS3, How2Net's labs, home lab, etc.) You don't list much in the realm of hands-on practice.

The IT Guy

I have only used Boson Ex-sim max for CCDA and CCNP. They were great aids but obviously not enough to pass a real certification exam with out additional study materials, lab prep, and some real world experience. At the CCENT/CCNA level you may be able to leverage a home lab setup or Boson Netsim to help compensate for the lack of real world experience. I cannot speak for Netsim's usability or reliability as I personally use a combination of Cisco hardware and GNS3.

If you really did as bad as you say, I would reconsider the two week exam retake and just focus on the material. Use that exam money to purchase some hardware (2600's/2950's) or simulator and lab lab lab. Whatever you do, hardware or simulator, just don't give up. Identify your goals and purpose for this certification pursuit and back it up with determination. Everybody absorbs and processes information differently. The same goes for how we use that information. Re-taking the exam when you are not even close to passing may do more harm than good.

NetworkVeteran

One more bit of advice. Someone posted the commands you should know for the ICND1 in this thread--

http://www.techexams.net/forums/ccna-ccent/90358-list-show-commands-icnd1.html

I would know at least the top TEN commands well before attempting the CCENT/CCNA or claiming Cisco knowledge in an interview.

DoubleNNs

Even tho you bombed the actual test, how did you do on the Odom practice tests and the tests on Cisco's website?
And when you took those tests, did you understand why the correct answer were right and the wrong answers were wrong?

Xyro

2 weeks = 2 soon

Give yourself more time. It sounds like you need to become much more familiar & comfortable with the CLI. IMHO, you will need more time than just 2 weeks to do so.

As others have stated, for a simulator... Boson.

streetking

I took my ICND1 today as well...

I definitely recommand getting the Boson Exam and thoroughly under ALL questions in it. I know Jeremy in CBTnugget recommanded not to get them because he didn't think that they really worth the money but I do not agree. They are really handy when you try to identify areas that you lack understanding in.

I have some background of Cisco stuffs (read Todd Lammle's book 6 years ago, failed CCNA 640-801 but work with Cisco device at work from time to time over the past years). I also watched all ICND1 videos from CBTnuggets. I then turn around and took the Boson SIM exam and failed exam A (they come with 3 exams in the package). That's when I realized just by watch the video from CBT was not enough.

I am lucky enough to have some cisco switches in production network that isn't fully configured so I can play around with and get familiarized with all the show commands. I looked for more sources (mainly wikipedia materials and other online sources and this forum) and then I started taking the other 2 simulation exams and I passed at around 870ish for both of them. I made sure that I go back and study all the questions appeared in the sims and understood all of them and I would get full score when I retake them for the second time.

shellee1983

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

One more bit of advice. Someone posted the commands you should know for the ICND1 in this thread--

http://www.techexams.net/forums/ccna-ccent/90358-list-show-commands-icnd1.html

I would know at least the top TEN commands well before attempting the CCENT/CCNA or claiming Cisco knowledge in an interview.

The problem was I know the commands...I didn't know how to read some the output because it wasn't explained. I need to figure out how to do that.

shellee1983

DoubleNNs wrote: »

Even tho you bombed the actual test, how did you do on the Odom practice tests and the tests on Cisco's website?
And when you took those tests, did you understand why the correct answer were right and the wrong answers were wrong?

That's why I thought I would do good. I got upper 90s on the Cisco Practice tests and the Odom Practice tests, so I thought using the simulator off the the Odom book and the ones in the Cisco practice test would suffice, but when I took the actual exam...it was NOTHING like either of the practice exams...even the one on this site I took and got a 93% so I felt pretty confident and boy was the rug pulled out from underneath me. All of the commands that CBT nuggets and Odom's book said to be very familiar with were not very helpful. I even got odd output when I did show ip interface s0/0 because it returned what show ip interface brief would. It was an extremely frustrating experience.

DoubleNNs

On the actual exam I hear they limit the amount of commands you can use.
If they have a question that could EASILY be found w/ 1 command, they might make you use 2/3 other commands creatively to arrive at the same answer. I guess it shows them that you know the CLI at a very intimate level.

Maybe thats why the outputs were showing up different for you?

bbarrick

They couldn't perhaps have given you the 100-101 test could they?

goldenlight

The Exam objectives are going to be your best study guide. Read over each objective and rate yourself on knowledge

cbtnuggets is really great with helping you understand the topic after hours of reading.

Study all your notes untill you are board

Download Packet tracer and play around with the commands. The way to learn the commands is with the "?" Jeremy uses the question mark all the time.

theodoxa

Without disclosing too much was the question without the necessary commands a Simlet where one of the questions said that some users couldn't access the internet? If it is, I got the same one and they simply do not allow the commands needed. Strangely, all my Simulations/Simlets were near the end of my exam.

theodoxa

I would suggest knowing:

* Show Commands (see list somebody posted)
* Protocols and Ports (Telnet, SSH, HTTP, TCP vs. UDP, Connection-Oriented vs. Connectionless, Windowing)
* Configuring Port Security
* Switching (When and How Flooding Occurs, Identify Source and Destination MAC)
* CDP (show cdp neighbors, show cdp neighbors detail, show cdp entry)
* Basic Routing Configuration
* IP Addressing (Subnetting, Identify Source and Destination IP)
* Wireless Security (WEP, WPA, WPA2, 802.11i), Standards (802.11 and 802.11a/b/g/n), Methods (FHSS, DSSS, OFDM), and Channels (Including Those Available in Other Countries Like Japan)

shellee1983

theodoxa wrote: »

Without disclosing too much was the question without the necessary commands a Simlet where one of the questions said that some users couldn't access the internet? If it is, I got the same one and they simply do not allow the commands needed. Strangely, all my Simulations/Simlets were near the end of my exam.

The ones I had issues with were finding certain things like show bandwith which I know is under show IP interfaces and when I typed that it came up with the show ip interface brief information -_-

The probem areas I seemed to have issues in is implementing a small routed network, implementing a small switched network, describing the operation of data networks and implement and verify WAN links. Those I scored all under 80. The other ares I did fine in.

NetworkVeteran

If it is, I got the same one and they simply do not allow the commands needed.

I've taken the CCNA exam multiple times and don't recall ever missing a sim, and they tend to use beta exams or ungraded/experimental questions to try out new things, so if it was graded I strongly suspect it was solvable.

What they may do is remove some of the choices for obtaining a particular bit of information. For example, if it asked you what devices your OSPF router was learning information from, they might only implement "show ip protocols" and not "show ip ospf neighbor". This may cause you a moment of frustration, but if you know the information is available under both commands, you will have no trouble. Yup, not understanding the output of the ten key commands might be a problem. No worries. Consider this an expensive practice test, and come back swinging! Failure is often an ingredient leading to success.

shellee1983

No, I was registered for the 802-822 test...but then again I wasn't administering a test.

shellee1983

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

I've taken the CCNA exam multiple times and don't recall ever missing a sim, and they tend to use beta exams or ungraded/experimental questions to try out new things, so if it was graded I strongly suspect it was solvable.

What they may do is remove some of the choices for obtaining a particular bit of information. For example, if it asked you what devices your OSPF router was learning information from, they might only implement "show ip protocols" and not "show ip ospf neighbor". This may cause you a moment of frustration, but if you know the information is available under both commands, you will have no trouble. Yup, not understanding the output of the ten key commands might be a problem. No worries. Consider this an expensive practice test, and come back swinging! Failure is often an ingredient leading to success.

I was reading some where that the sims and the drag and drop questions are worth something crazy like 80 points a piece and they don't give partial credit and if that was the case then I knew more than I felt that I did according to this score. Which the last sublett question I had I totally failed because I was already so frustrated I didn't even think to use the appropriate command, which sadly I knew was the answer later after thinking about it. I think I sabotaged myself after the first few questions which were so difficult I put it in my mind that I was going to fail...I almost had no will to finish sitting there at question 10 knowing I had missed all of them (two I knew were wrong because once I clicked next, I knew the answer but...you can't go back to fix it) I feel much better now, I know what to expect and I've scheduled my retake in two weeks from today. I've developed a good plan and purchased the sim amongst other material and I will figure this out in two weeks. I just have to use this as an expensive learning experience.

MickQ

Odom is good but not as the first book you read. You should try Lammle or similar to get used to the concepts first before filling in any blanks from Odom.

I can't stress how important it is to buy a lab. Get a cheap switch or two (guides elsewhere on this site) and get stuck in. You'll need this familiarity for when you're working with the real thing. When you're typing it also helps you remember all those strange commands.

shellee1983

MickQ wrote: »

Odom is good but not as the first book you read. You should try Lammle or similar to get used to the concepts first before filling in any blanks from Odom.

I can't stress how important it is to buy a lab. Get a cheap switch or two (guides elsewhere on this site) and get stuck in. You'll need this familiarity for when you're working with the real thing. When you're typing it also helps you remember all those strange commands.

I agree, I just purchased an arsenal of things and I am backtracking and will be studying each item in-depth seeing as even though I thought I grasped the concepts...I was wrong.

MickQ

See if you can find someone to teach the stuff to. That's a great way to learn as it highlights subjects that you thought you knew but turns out not as well as you thought. It can also help you to see how it work from a different angle.

shellee1983

MickQ wrote: »

See if you can find someone to teach the stuff to. That's a great way to learn as it highlights subjects that you thought you knew but turns out not as well as you thought. It can also help you to see how it work from a different angle.

I agree which is why I am looking for a tutor...apparently I need someone to say "hey knucklehead, you don't got it" then explaining it to me instead of assuming I got it and being given a false sense of security...

MickQ

Hehe. A tutor would be good, but I was thinking that you could also learn from you teaching someone else.

shellee1983

MickQ wrote: »

Hehe. A tutor would be good, but I was thinking that you could also learn from you teaching someone else.

That would help too but I would feel bad posing to know something I clearly don't. I'm re-reading the stuff I missed on the exam now and it mainly had to do with the simulators and actually connecting everything properly. This is going to be a fun two weeks.

MickQ

No I meant teaching/talking about it to friends/family.

shellee1983

MickQ wrote: »

No I meant teaching/talking about it to friends/family.

I do that anyway at work and I talk to my husband about it. I started working with the Boson simulator and immediately in the first lesson it cleared up a question I had while I was taking the test about passwords and such. I'm kicking myself now for not getting this sooner :-/ I feel like such a dummy . Oh well you live you learn.

theodoxa

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

I've taken the CCNA exam multiple times and don't recall ever missing a sim, and they tend to use beta exams or ungraded/experimental questions to try out new things, so if it was graded I strongly suspect it was solvable.

What they may do is remove some of the choices for obtaining a particular bit of information. For example, if it asked you what devices your OSPF router was learning information from, they might only implement "show ip protocols" and not "show ip ospf neighbor". This may cause you a moment of frustration, but if you know the information is available under both commands, you will have no trouble. Yup, not understanding the output of the ten key commands might be a problem. No worries. Consider this an expensive practice test, and come back swinging! Failure is often an ingredient leading to success.

I think what they wanted me to do was make some assumptions about the network. I don't like making assumptions. Heck, when doing the Boson Sims Questions I would type "sh ip nat trans" on every router in between just to make sure nobody had implemented NAT on one of the routers when asked what the source or destination IP address would be in a data flow. But, they took away the commands I would normally have used to confirm or disprove those assumptions. Two of the answers were blatantly wrong. It came down to two possible answers and I believe they wanted me to make an assumption about the configuration of a connected router [but without the benefit of CDP or being able to view the routing table.]

BTW, I passed (912/1000) so that question didn't stop me, just annoyed me. Fortunately, Cisco is not nearly as bad as Microsoft at asking you to assume stuff. That was the only question I felt demanded assumptions that could not be verified or disproven.