The Exam Situation
| Exam taking is not something that most people anticipate eagerly, no matter how well prepared they are. In fact, if you really have trouble dealing with stress related to exams and tests, there are complete courses you could enroll in to help you better deal with it. For those of you who have already taken certification exams, you will not find anything substantially different about taking the CCNA exams. Regardless of the number of exams you have completed, an understanding of how to deal with the exam (how much time to spend on questions, the environment you will be in, and so on) and the exam software that is provided will help you to concentrate on the task at hand, which of course is passing the exam. Also, experience has shown that mastering a few basic exam-taking skills should help you to recognize some of the tricks and gotchas you are bound to find in some of the exam questions. Your first task is to find out where and when the exam is given and sign up for it. This is a lot easier than it sounds. There are two organizations providing Cisco certification testing:
You can hop on their Web sites or call them directly. Either way, you will find a nearby testing facility and a time you can take the test. You will need to provide a credit card number because neither organization will test without payment up front. The cost of each exam at time of publication is $145 U.S. dollars and is subject to change. Now, the answer to your next three questions is "no." No, you will not get a refund if you do not show up. No, you will not get a refund if you are late (they will not let you take the test if you are late). Lastly, no, you will not get a refund if you do not pass the test, nor will you get a discount on the retest. Okay, sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it? Well, it is only harsh if you are late or unprepared. Enough said? When you arrive at the exam-testing center, you must sign in with an exam coordinator and show two forms of identification, one of which must be a photo ID. Please do not forget the photo ID. After you have signed in and your time slot arrives, you will be asked to deposit any books, bags, or other items you brought with you. Then, you will be escorted into a closed and hopefully quiet room. Typically, the room will be furnished with one to half a dozen computers, and each workstation will be separated from the others by dividers designed to keep you from seeing what is happening on someone else's computer. Before the exam, be sure to make proper use of as much of the material that appears on the Cram Sheet (inside the front cover of this book) as you can. You will be supplied with a pen or pencil and a blank sheet of paper, or, in some cases, an erasable plastic sheet and an erasable felt-tip pen. Those are the only things you are allowed to take with you into the test room. However, you are allowed to write any information you want on both sides of this sheet once you enter the test room. Therefore, you might want to quickly write down any facts or figures you might forget, such as IP address ranges or configuration commands. When you are finished with the examination, any materials that you had in the room will stay in the room for exam confidentiality. Most test rooms feature a wall with a large window or a security camera. This permits the exam coordinator standing behind it to monitor the room, to prevent exam takers from talking to one another, and to observe anything out of the ordinary that might happen. The exam coordinator will have preloaded the appropriate Cisco certification exam and you will be permitted to start as soon as you are seated in front of the computer and ready to begin. The timer on the exam does not start until you are ready to start, so do not rush anything. All Cisco certification exams allow a certain maximum amount of time in which to complete the work (this time is indicated on the exam by an on-screen counter/clock, so you can check the time remaining whenever you like). The number of questions and amount of time allotted for each exam will vary.
All Cisco certification exams are computer-generated and use a multiple-choice, multiple-answer question format. From time to time, you may be prompted to enter actual configuration commands as if you were at the command-line interface. It is important not to abbreviate the commands in any way when this type of question is posed; the simulator is usually looking for one correct answer, that being the full command. Although this may sound quite simple, the questions are constructed not only to check your mastery of basic facts and figures about Cisco router configuration, but also to require you to evaluate one or more sets of circumstances or requirements. Often, you will be asked to give more than one answer to a question. Likewise, you might be asked to select the best or most effective solution to a problem from a range of choices, all of which are technically correct. Taking the exam is quite an adventure, and it involves real thinking. This book will show you what to expect and how to deal with the potential problems and lead you on your way to being Cisco certified. |
![CCNA Exam Cram[tm] 2 (Exams 640-821, 640-811, 640-801)](/icons/blank_book.jpg "CCNA Exam Cram[tm] 2 (Exams 640-821, 640-811, 640-801)"){kind=icon}
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