Pushing back test date

weakness33

Hi everyone - I just joined the site this evening looking for some direction. I have my 101 on Tuesday afternoon (that I pushed back one already) but I'm thinking about doing it again. How many times have you pushed back an exam due to your nerves or just not sure if its time?

Have you guys just sucked it up and took it hoping for the best?

TechGuru80

Once I have read through the book, reviewed and completed labs enough to be pretty fluent, I go ahead and take the exam regardless of nerves. There is a big difference in not being even close to prepared versus being overly prepared. I believe the wait time between exams is only 5 days starting the next day…if you end up really close then you can just reschedule quickly. I have not pushed back any exams and take about 2 months to prepare.

Jon_Cisco

I have no idea if I will be prepared but I scheduled my first exam for Jan 20 2014.
I plan to take it no matter how confident I am.
There is a cost to this but for me if I did fail it would be a cheap lesson to hit the books harder. Pass or fail I know I will be better off having tried it.

rowelld

I've pushed back my test days before. I'd rather be 90-100% sure I'm ready to take it. Especially if the costs are out of your own pocket. Limit it to less than 3 push backs and give yourself plenty of time to review.

TechGuru80

If you have to push the exam back three times, you don't have a grasp on where your knowledge level actually is. I mean really you should not be pushing it back more than once or at most twice. If you need to get lab simulators and see how well you can complete the tasks, and practice exams to get a good idea where you stand.

weakness33

Took the exam today and got a 768/804 ... after hitting the end it felt real good. At least I have the end test breakdown of the different parts to work on. 768 is still a good amount away from passing, right?

Jon_Cisco

I am not sure what the passing scores are. Hopefully having sat for it once now you have a good idea what the experience is like. Focus on your weak points but lab everything. Hopefully your confidence will be boosted for your next attempt.

I am already nervous and I am 2 months away from taking mine. I plan to take it and cross my fingers everything I'm learning is sticking. The only way I will know is to get up the nerves and try it. Consider yourself one step closer to passing and keep going.

Good Luck

TechGuru80

Use the percentage breakdowns to identify what to study more. They break it down well I feel.

weakness33

TechGuru80 wrote: »

Use the percentage breakdowns to identify what to study more. They break it down well I feel.

As its probably been said in here before, they don't say how many questions were in each of the 7 categories you get scored on. I won't know but its one of those did a 33% I got in one say that I got 1 out of 3? 2 out of 6? 3 out of 9? Did I get a 90% in one thanks to getting 9 out of 10? - but that's the way it is.

OfWolfAndMan

What did you feel you didn't have a grasp on?

weakness33

I bet it was multiple choice questions about the command line. (like picking only X amount of the X amount of selections they give you) - One thing I didn't like was a machine's small monitor. It made the back/forth of the example and lab windows a bit frustrating. I didn't say anything because I thought I'd come off as some guy who failed an exam and is pissed off so complain to feel better.

I really thought I did it. I took my time and had 5 minutes left without rushing. I felt I had it under control.

jayskata

Man...you got me all anxious as well, I'll be taking mine 2nd week of December. Tel me, when you took the exam. Did you find it hard or what?

TehToG

I pushed ICND2 back almost six months because I didn't have free time to study. Finally I just set a date and went and sat the test. I failed it (old ICND2) but that give me a good feel for what the exam wanted from me and helped my really focus my studying.