Calculator Available on the Exam?

Darril · September 2011

Can anyone tell me if a calculator is available to you on this exam? I recently took the SY0-301 Security+ exam and when a subnetting question came up, a link to a calculator appeared. The link to the calculator wasn't available for other questions though.

Darril Gibson
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djfunz · September 2011

I would be interested to know this as well. I imagine the CCENT would have a nice variety of subnetting questions as well.

Joshuab009 · September 2011

I just took the network + exam a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty sure that there was no calc link or option.

Devilsbane · September 2011

I took this back in 2009 but I believe they had the same policy back then too.

http://studynotes.net/Network-FAQ

Do I need to bring a calculator to the exam?

Answer

No. Online calculators are available when you take your exam.

universalfrost · September 2011

i just took the net+ last month and no calculators were available , either physical or online versions. of course i also had no subnetting based questions.

for the server+ i just took last week I did have subnetting questions, but not calculator. I just used my dry erase board.

osJoe · September 2011

There was no calculator on my exam either. Took it about two months ago.

Devilsbane · September 2011

universalfrost wrote: »

i just took the net+ last month and no calculators were available , either physical or online versions. of course i also had no subnetting based questions.

The button is only provided on questions where a calculator would be needed.

Darril · September 2011

Thanks for all the answers. Doesn't seem like anyone has seen a calculator on this exam, at least not recently.

This had me questioning whether subnetting is really needed for this exam. I looked around, and see that both the N10-004 and N10-005 mention subnetting twice. In short, I think subnetting is needed for this exam, even if you only see one or two questions. As I searched though, i was reminded that it's needed on the job.

Author Todd Lammle lists five questions that you may need to answer with any subnetting question:

How many subnets does a subnet mask produce
How many valid hosts per subnet are available
What are the valid subnets
What's the broadcast address of each subnet
What are the valid hosts in each subnet

I'd add the following three, though the last two are implied in Todd's last question:

What's the first address in the subnet
What's the last address in the subnet
Is this a valid IP address for this subnet

The last question is tremendously important on the job. When subnetting is used and technicians manually enter the IP address and subnet mask for devices such as printers, or even key servers, it's common to see fat finger errors. I've seen this result in outages causing loss of availability of key services on a network. The tech that understands subnetting can identify the problem, resolve it, and be the hero.

For example, one host on a subnet has this IP and is working: 192.168.232.222 / 12
Another host has this IP ad is not working: 192.168.195.222 / 12

Is the second host not working because the IP address is incorrect, or because of another problem? In other words, does the second host have an IP address on the same local subnet, or is it an IP address on a different subnet?

Here are two other pairs...
Are these two on the same subnet?

10.178.215.111 / 10
10.189.215.111 / 10

Are these two on the same subnet?

10.178.209.111 / 21
10.178.223.111 / 21

Knowing how to subnet manually is useful. And if you learn it now, you won't have to relearn it later. You may even see a subnetting question on the Security+ exam.

This thread has some good input by several people, including a good table to understand by DigitalZeroOne.
http://www.techexams.net/forums/network/70263-subnetting-question.html

Darril Gibson
blog

universalfrost · September 2011

the net+ book by todd showed me the briliantly easy way to subnet (I had been doing the hard "finger" method for years on all my ccna renewal exams) and that was the best part of the book. I never used the method for net+ exam last month, but I did use it for my server+ exam earlier this month (had a couple subnetting questions.

keep up the good work on the security+ book (I used it in July for my Security+ CE test which I aced and wish I had it 9 years ago when I originally took the security+ test (and barely passed) . I have recommended your book to everyone of my contractors that have to sit for the security+ exam.

Darril · September 2011

universalfrost wrote: »

the net+ book by todd showed me the briliantly easy way to subnet (I had been doing the hard "finger" method for years on all my ccna renewal exams) and that was the best part of the book. I never used the method for net+ exam last month, but I did use it for my server+ exam earlier this month (had a couple subnetting questions.

keep up the good work on the security+ book (I used it in July for my Security+ CE test and wish I had it 9 years ago when I originall took the security+ test (and barely passed) . I have recommended you book to everyone of my contractors that have to sit for the security+ exam.

Thanks. I'm beginning to think that the importance of subnetting isn't very high on Network+ these days, but interesting to hear that it was on the Server+ exam. Thanks for the kind words on the Security+ book. The SY0-201 version of the Get Certified Get Ahead:SY0-301 Study Guide is still helping a lot of people pass the exam. I'm hoping the update (not out yet) will help as many people.

Darril Gibson
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Calculator Available on the Exam?

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