The Exam Situation

When you arrive at the testing center where you scheduled your exam, you will need to sign in with an exam proctor. He or she will ask you to show two forms of identification, one of which must be a government-issued photo ID. After you have signed in, you will be asked to deposit any books, bags, cell phones, pagers , or other items you brought with you. Then you'll be escorted into the closed room that houses the exam seats.

All exams are completely closed book. In fact, you won't be permitted to take anything with you into the testing area except a pen or pencil, and a blank piece of paper handed to you by the exam proctor. In many testing centers a small white board and erasable felt-tip pen are given to you. These items are to help you write down notes from exam questions or do mathematics that may be required of subnetting issues. You must return all the paper and items given to you by the exam proctor at the end of the exam.

Most test rooms feature a wall with a large picture window, a camera, or both. This permits the exam proctor to monitor the room, prevent exam takers from talking to one another, and observe anything out of the ordinary that might go on. The exam proctor will have preloaded the appropriate Cisco certification exam ”for the readers of this book, that's the Cisco Support Certification Exam 642-831 ”and you'll be permitted to start as soon as you are seated in front of the computer. At the beginning of each test is a tutorial you can go through if you are unfamiliar with the testing environment.

All Cisco certification exams allow a predetermined, maximum amount of time in which to complete your work. (This time is indicated on the exam by an onscreen counter/clock in the upper-right corner of the screen, so you can check the time remaining whenever you like.) All exams are computer generated and use primarily a multiple-choice format and simulation questions. Simulation questions test your real-world experience in the actual Cisco interface. You will be required to submit the proper series of commands to accomplish a particular configuration based on the given scenario or diagram. Whenever possible, the complete output from the router or switch is used in this book. Commands and syntaxes typed in by the administrator of the switch or router are highlighted in bold.

You will also encounter questions that demand a fill-in-the-blank answer that represents the proper Cisco command. The Cisco Support exam consists of 55 to 65 randomly selected questions from a pool of several hundred questions. You can take up to 75 minutes to complete the exam.

Although this might sound quite simple, the questions are formulated to thoroughly check your mastery of the material. Cisco exam questions are also very adept at testing you on more than one area of knowledge with a single question ”for example, testing your knowledge of the command syntax, as well as the proper command mode. Often, you will be asked to provide 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. Taking the exam is quite an adventure, and it involves real thinking as well as skill and an ability to manage your time. This book shows you what to expect and how to deal with potential problems, puzzles, and predicaments you are likely to encounter.

When you complete a Cisco certification exam, the software will tell you whether you have passed or failed. The results are then broken down into several main objectives or domain areas. You will be shown the percentage that you got correct for each individual domain. Even if you fail, you should ask for (and keep) the detailed report the test proctor prints for you. You can use this report to help you prepare for another go-round, if necessary. If you need to retake an exam, you will have to schedule a new test with Prometric or VUE and pay for another exam. Keep in mind that, because the questions come from a pool, you will receive different questions the second time around. Cisco also has a retake policy, which is that you must wait 72 hours between exam attempts.

In the following section, you will learn more about how Cisco test questions look and how they must be answered .