CCNA Security: 794 / 1000

aftereffectoraftereffector Member Posts: 525 ■■■■□□□□□□
So close! Yet so far... I just scored 794 out of a possible 1000 on the 640-554 IINS exam. The passing mark was 804, so I missed it by one percentage point.

I used the Keith Barker / Scott Morris OCG as a study guide, supplemented with some Skillport online training modules (which were buggy, not particularly in-depth, and prone to typos). I ran into one or two questions on the exam which were not covered in the OCG - I just checked the index - but overall the book seemed to track along with the exam fairly well. I aced the simulations but fell short in some areas, notably Common Security Threats (duh!), Common Layer 2 Attacks (duh!), firewall technologies and IPS. I think I was overconfident in the first two domains I just listed and didn't really spend much time reviewing them... I just took CASP and CCNA R&S not long before that, so I figured I already understood security threats and VLANs. Well, I suppose not!

I have a week to cool my heels before re-attempting (and crushing!) the exam, which should be more than enough time to do a comprehensive review of the four domains on which I scored less than 80%. I underestimated this exam a little, and the $250 retest will be a reminder not to underestimate the Voice exam, which is coming up next on my programme.

Back to the books!
CCIE Security - this one might take a while...

Comments

  • mistabrumley89mistabrumley89 Member Posts: 356 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Sorry to hear that. Just smooth out your rough areas and you should be fine.
    Goals: WGU BS: IT-Sec (DONE) | CCIE Written: In Progress
    LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/charlesbrumley
  • dpsmooth15dpsmooth15 Banned Posts: 155
    Next week I will be looking to read PASSED on the Forumicon_thumright.gif
  • RouteMyPacketRouteMyPacket Member Posts: 1,104
    It happens but I must ask, where is your focus? You mention wanting to do CCNA Voice next? What do you work with on a day to day basis?
    Modularity and Design Simplicity:

    Think of the 2:00 a.m. test—if you were awakened in the
    middle of the night because of a network problem and had to figure out the
    traffic flows in your network while you were half asleep, could you do it?
  • aftereffectoraftereffector Member Posts: 525 ■■■■□□□□□□
    I work as essentially the equivalent of a NOC manager in the military. We have some Cisco devices, but I don't get to work with the production stuff because if I did, I would be taking training opportunities away from the soldiers who actually need to be confident with configurations... so I am working on Packet Tracer and about to try and set up a GNS3 environment.

    My long term focus is information security, so I took CASP and will be pursuing CISSP later this year, but in the meantime I feel like I need more knowledge of how the network operates at the device level in order to understand how to create and implement policies at the management level. Hence, CCNA R&S, CCNA Security, and Voice to get an introduction to unified communications. I don't plan on doing any more CCNA level tracks until I get enough experience with Cisco devices to work through the CCNP R/S track, and that will be a few years from now.
    CCIE Security - this one might take a while...
  • StussyNzStussyNz Member Posts: 177
    Good luck on the re-test. Live and learn that's the motto :)
  • aftereffectoraftereffector Member Posts: 525 ■■■■□□□□□□
    Good news from tonight - I passed :) I wish I could see which ones I got wrong, as I was feeling pretty confident about all but one or two of them.

    On to the next challenge!
    CCIE Security - this one might take a while...
  • ednardednard Member Posts: 75 ■■□□□□□□□□
    Congratulations. Well done for quickly getting back on the horse and getting it passed!
  • DoubleNNsDoubleNNs Member Posts: 2,015 ■■■■■□□□□□
    Congratulations on the pass!!
    Goals for 2018:
    Certs: RHCSA, LFCS: Ubuntu, CNCF CKA, CNCF CKAD | AWS Certified DevOps Engineer, AWS Solutions Architect Pro, AWS Certified Security Specialist, GCP Professional Cloud Architect
    Learn: Terraform, Kubernetes, Prometheus & Golang | Improve: Docker, Python Programming
    To-do | In Progress | Completed
  • shyguyITshyguyIT Member Posts: 380
    Congrats! icon_thumright.gif
    2017 Goals:
    Route[X], Switch [], TSHOOT[]
  • SharkDiverSharkDiver Member Posts: 844
    Great job on the re-test!
    Congratulations!!!
  • SephStormSephStorm Member Posts: 1,731 ■■■■■■■□□□
    congrats, i need to get back in my studies, but you know... SWTOR.
  • maharalielmaharaliel Member Posts: 119
    Congrats for passing the re-test.
  • GreenLanternGreenLantern Member Posts: 54 ■■□□□□□□□□
    congrats on the pass.
    In pursuit of CCNA:SECURITY; CCNP; THEN MCSE
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