I took my exam today…. I did not pass 
I got a 705 and I needed to get an 804 to pass. I pretty much ran out of time around question 30. There are 50 questions and so I pretty much went through the last questions really fast before I got to about question 46 something when my time completely ran out.
I ran out of time because of the simulations. One of them it took me along time because I couldn’t remember a certain command. I eventually figured it out after everything else I tried did not work and searched around using ‘?’ and found the command I needed. The other lab I knew how to do, but it just took me awhile (about 15 minutes) before I figured out what I needed to do and how the whole lab was set up. Once I got to that aha moment it was pretty easy from there. So I probably spent over 25 minutes on that one simulation.
Another question took me a long time because it took me awhile to calculate the valid IP addresses for a certain subnet. I should practice doing them backwards so that if the IP address is toward the last valid subnet that you can have, I don’t have to start at the first subnet and figure out the different valid networks one at a time until I get to the end. Which can take awhile.
Other than that I felt pretty confident about all the other questions. I felt that they were pretty straight forward and that I knew what the answers were.
My print out that they gave me says that I can’t retake the test until 10-Feb-2010, which sucks cause I was hoping that I could take it tomorrow, but I’m going to take it again next Thursday on 11-Feb-2010. Which will put me at Day 33. I still think 33 Days to get any Cisco Certification is really good no matter how many times you have to take the exam. I mean ya it sucks that I have to fork over another $125 bucks to take it again , but honestly no matter how much I studied beforehand I don’t think I would have passed the exam simply because I didn’t know how the labs were set up. Unless of course I had purchased some practice labs or something, but then how many hours would I have spent studying those (and how much do they cost?). I’m sure I would have spent a good 20+ hours just doing labs when today I spend only 110 minutes practicing the labs for my next exam. Time is money and I would rather Pay $250 dollars and get my certification in 1 month than only spend $125 and study for 2-6 months before I went and took the exam.
Some test day preparation tips:
- Make sure you know where your car keys are the day before you take your test. If they are locked inside of your wife’s car it won’t matter how long your look inside your apartment…you won’t find them. I took her car today and didn’t find my keys until after I got home again.
- Make sure you know where the test center is. Even though the address is still on the same street where it used to be and you think you know where it is because you went there 4 years ago, it might have moved on you. It was about a mile down the same street that it used to be on. They had moved 3.5 years ago. How was I supposed to know?
Taking my Test again
Anyway, I feel pretty confident that I will pass my test when I take it again 7 days from now. If the simulations are anywhere close to what I had today I’m sure I can get them done in a matter of only a few minutes. Which will leave me plenty of time to properly answer the remaining questions.
Related Topics:
ICND1 Study Guide – The Fastest Way To Get Cisco Certified Guaranteed!