I took ICND2 640-816 and failed.

politenessman

So I'm bummed, but it is what it is. The question is; what did I learn from this?

The first thing is that I was presented with some IPv6 material I had not seen before. Obviously I am not going to present the question here, but I will say that is was something you either knew or didn't and I didn't. This was question 2 and that put me off my stride right from the get go.

After that I really struggled with the subnetting questions and in some cases had real trouble in comprehending what the question was even asking. All of this slowed me down and I ended up rushing the last 5 questions, and finishing with 22 seconds left on the clock!

My score was 720. I knew by the half way mark that I was failing, and figured I'd just keep going, but I think when you know, it screws you up even more. Contrast this score to the Cisco self evaluation (scored 97%) and the other online tests that I have done where I have consistently scored high 800s+, I suspect I wasn't quite as prepared as I thought I was and I suspect I lost points in the sims rather than the basic questions.
So what did I learn?

• 53% -- Configure, verify, trouble shoot a switch with VLANs and interswitch communications
• 50% -- Implement an IP addressing scheme and IP services to meet network requirements in a medium sized Enterprise Branch office network
• 67% -- Configure and troubleshoot basic operation and routing on Cisco devices
• 50% -- Implement, verify and troubleshoot NAT and ACLs in a medium sized Enterprise branch office network
• 83% -- Implement and verify WAN links

So I was low across the board which tells me I'm not weak in one area, I just need to practice everything! I have rebooked my exam for two weeks hence and I think my strategy is to cover the material again, read Odom's book and lab like crazy. I think the key here is the labs.

Ismaeljrp

Did you try the practice exams in Odom's book ? They helped me a lot when reviewing. I'd take a practice exam from the book, then go over the questions I got wrong and try to figure it out for a bit, then I'll check out the detailed explanations. Usually I got that aha! moment, or I'd re-read the chapter and view a training video on the subject, to figure out where exactly my thought process is failing. It's like a traceroute of the mind.