The Testing Situation

When you arrive at the testing center where you scheduled your test, you need to sign in with a test coordinator. He or she will ask you to produce two forms of identification, one of which must be a photo ID. After you've signed in and your time slot arrives, you'll be asked to leave any books, bags, or other items you brought with you, and you'll be escorted into a closed room. Typically, that room will be furnished with anywhere from one to half a dozen computers, and each workstation will be separated from the others by dividers designed to keep you from seeing what's happening on someone else's computer.

You'll be furnished 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. You're allowed to write down any information you want on this sheet, and you can write on both sides of the page. We suggest you memorize as much as possible of the material on the "Cram Sheet" (on this book's inside back cover) and then write that information on the blank sheet as soon as you sit down in front of the test machine. You can refer to the sheet any time you like during the test, but you'll have to surrender it when you leave the room.

Most test rooms feature a wall with a large window, which allows the test coordinator to monitor the room, prevent test-takers from talking to one another, and observe anything out of the ordinary that might be going on.

The test coordinator will have preloaded the Cisco certification exam you've signed up for, and you'll be permitted to start as soon as you're seated in front of the machine.

Each Cisco certification exam permits you to take up to 75 minutes to complete the test. (The test itself maintains an onscreen counter/clock so that you can check the time remaining whenever you like.) The passing score varies for each exam and Cisco has been known to change the passing score after an exam has been available for a while.

All Cisco certification exams are computer generated and use a multiple-choice, drag-and-drop, or fill-in-the-blank format. Although this setup might sound easy, the questions are constructed not just to check your mastery of basic Cisco system administration, but also to require you to evaluate one or more sets of circumstances or requirements. Often, you'll 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 technically are correct. The tests are quite an adventure, and they involve real thinking. This book shows you what to expect and how to deal with the problems, puzzles, and predicaments you're likely to find on the exams.