Why CCNA is Difficult, Part II

I think that all the problems related to the CCNA exam can be alleviated by following the classes of a NetAcad.
I passed CCNA one year ago, after following the NetAcad classes grouped into 4 modules(Intro, Routing, Switching, WAN access). I also used Wendell's books(this is not PR for Wendell, i bought the 2 books for 640-801 just before the new CCNA was announced).

I think the NetAcad helps alot because you are required to take an exam weekly for each chapter of the module's curriculum. You also have a final module exam after you end the module. This final exam has 50-60 questions, so it kinda prepares you for the time pressure you'll encounter on the CCNA exam.

If you pass a final module exam you get a diploma. Some companies here in Romania ask for at least CCNA 1 on some networking related jobs, among other things. Not saying you'll get a job with only CCNA 1, but it might be useful in you progess towards the big, 640-802 exam.
If you follow all 4 modules of CCNA in a NetAcad you get about 30 exams which will get you used to the Cisco way of asking exam questions.

The redesigned curriculum for CCNA 4 is very well structured,y ou get useful examples and demos. You also get practice exercises in Packet Tracer, which help you with the sims and simlets.

The NetAcad also helps you keep track of the preparation for the exam. I went weekly at the NetAcad for 4 hours. If i had learned at home i'm sure i would be distracted by other things.

HTH,
Adrian

I just took the Intro test a week ago, and it was notably harder than I thought it would be. I just barely failed it, but was happy with my score considering I had only put about 4 weeks of study time in (something I felt was comparable to my college exam preparations). Most topics were brand new to me, but by that time I felt like I had a good grasp on the material according to various practice tests and exercises. I figured the best litmus test would be to take the test, do my best, and see how it operated and how well I could do. Again, I was happy with my score, but wondered how I would know when I was ready to take the test. Then I read your first post which was exactly what I was looking for.

As for this week’s post, I can say without a doubt the most challenging aspects of the test for me were the Simlets and the General Time Pressure. You’re thrown a lot of information at once, have to process it, and try to solve it, all while there is a clock ticking down the seconds in the corner. My votes go towards those and I look forward to seeing another great post next week!

I think the single biggest challenge to the exam are the simlet/testlet questions. They make you think long and hard about what is being asked and how to best answer. Knowing how best to get the information can be tricky, as there is often more than one way to do so - you may need to use multiple show commands one way, and only one another.

For me at least, I had to think about what was happening in the network for that particular problem. Answering questions about what happens in an internetwork (standard multiple choice type questions) is easy if you've studied enough, but applying them to a specific situation is where more skill lies.

Time contstraints have never been an issue for me, similarly subnetting. I think subnetting is something you can either do or you can't. Once you've grasped the concept, with practice you can apply it whenever you need to. I know there are a lot of methods and 'cheat sheets' for subnetting, but they are only learning aids, and maybe relying on these 'subnetting tables' is why people find it hard to do. Subnetting is based on rules - understand the rules, understand subnetting.

If anyone's interested, this is the method I use to subnet, taken from my blog. http://altarespot.lessergods.eu/?p=7

1. I find it difficult to separate the topics between the two exams. For example, the first exam covers general subnetting, while the second covers VLSM/CIDR/etc. In many cases the material in the second exam is simply a more in depth look at a topic in the first exam. As you can't solve a VLSM problem without understanding general subnetting, or implement VLANs without understanding switching fundamentals, you essentially have to study all CCNA topics for both exams (which is why I just took the combined exam). This is in contrast to the CCxP exams, which are generally focused on one topic (switching, routing, WAN, BGP, QoS, etc.).

I can only imagine how rough the individual CCxP exams would be were they divided as the CCNA exams are (i.e. CCNP exam 1 covers some EIGRP, VLANs, switch security, and a little QoS; exam 2 is MPLS, STP, Wireless, and some VOIP; exam 3 is more VOIP, BGP, VTP, a little more EIGRP, etc., etc.)

2. I feel some of the questions/scenarios have too much "fluff" in them. For a test that is heavily time restricted, I'm not particularly looking for a long scenario as to why my boss wants me to reconfigure the network, what my motivation for doing so is, etc. I would much rather see "configure this network to support " than "Your boss walks in one day and complains the network doesn't support . He asks you to configure a sample lab to support to test if this is feasible. He shows you the below requirements....
"

This may be a realistic scenario in real life, but your boss would also give you more than 5-10 minutes to read his instructions and implement the lab as he requested.

3. Random network designs - it's great the tests show a variety of network configurations, but again the exams are heavily time limited. Learning a new configuration every question eats up time that could be better spent answering the question. Again, if I've only got a couple minutes, I don't want to spend half my time simply reading and understanding the question. "Now what was host A's IP address for this question? Let me go back up to the mini-novel and hunt it down again."

On a side note, this would be less of an issue if testing centers would invest in larger, higher resolution monitors that could actually fit the majority of the information/scenario/lab on the screen at once without having to scroll through a bunch of frames and hunt through windows. Perhaps a dual monitor setup?

4. It's hard to accurately judge your pace. Say you have 40 questions left and 70 minutes to do them in; how well you're doing depends on what types of questions remain. Do you have multiple scenarios left? How many of the remaining questions are multi-part (i.e. 4 or 5 separate questions that count as one because they are labeled A, B, C, etc)? There is a huge difference in the amount of time various questions take up, and simply knowing how many questions remain is of limited use.