Down by two touchdowns, with 8 minutes left. Do you go for it on 4th down? Down 2 goals with 15 left - do you put in 3 more strikers, and pray for a break or two? When do you start playing hack-a-shaq at the end of a game versus the... Cavaliers? (Even as a Cavs fan, it's still a little weird to think about having Shaq at center.) Today, we'll look at the same decision relative to the CCNA exam - and more importantly, how to hopefully avoid having to answer questions faster than you can even read them. I'll offer a few suggestions, and hopefully, those of you that have a good plan for time management can share your thoughts with others as well.
Quick recap: CCNA often surprises people by how much prep it requires, and the relative difficulty in passing the test. The time pressure on the exam seems to be one of the bigger issues, at least according to our survey. This is the 2nd post about time pressure, with the previous post discussing time pressure in general. Feel free to look here for the history of this discussion:
Everyone should have a time management strategy going into the exam - whatever it is. In my opinion, that plan ought to give you a reasonable way to look at the # questions answered, time remaining, and decide if it's time to do the CCNA-equivalent of hack-a-Shaq by answering the questions as fast as you can. And more importantly, the plan should warn you before you need to panic, so you can pick up the pace a little as need be, or even take a little more time.
I've got a few other time management topics hidden at the end of this post, but first let me outline a time management plan, and ramble a bit about why. I think with some simply addition and multiplication, you can look at your questions answered, time taken so far, and adjust it for those longer questions - Sims, Simlets, and Testlets - and know whether you're doing well on time, a little behind, or way behind.
Background: CCNA, per Cisco's web site, has 45-55 questions, with 90 minutes to take it. Let's say each testlet, simlet, and Sim require... 6 times the amount of time a multichoice question takes. I want to do some math and figure out how much time I get per MC question and for the longer questions, so I'll do some math ahead of time to find a normalized question time (term I made up). For example, if your exam has 52 questions, and 4 end up being time eaters:
The term doesn't matter, but what this means is the following: If you had this test, and took 1.25 minutes per shorter question, and 6 *1.25 minutes (7.5 minutes) per time eating question, you'd finish in exactly 90 minutes. You don't know how many time eaters you will get, but it gives you a point of reference at least.
So, how do you apply this? Well, the screen tells you what question you're on. When you get a time eater, note that on your notepad, so you remember how many you've seen. Then, whenever you finish a question - math is easier if you do this when the question count is a multiple of 5 - do this:
For each time eater you've seen, add 5 to the question count, multiply by 1.25, and that's how much time you should have taken so far. If you've actually taken less time, you're ahead, if you've taken morettime, you're behind, if you've taken a lot more, well, that's unfortunate.
EG: After question 20, 2 time eaters so far, 33:41 used so far:
20 + 10 = 30, *1.25/question, = 37.5 minutes.You're roughly 3 minutes ahead, and in great shape.
Another EG: after question 30, 3 time eaters so far, 60 minutes used so far:
30 + 15 = 45 *1.25/question = 56 mins plus a few seconds, so you're around 4 minutes behind, but not as far behind as you may have guessed.
What this process does is remove some of the ambiguity of the time taken for the questions that take considerably longer. You can adjust this to your own perspective - maybe you want to assume less time per question (maybe 1:10), or more. But the main idea here is to be able to quickly look at your current stats and know if you're behind or ahead, even when you don't know how many time eaters you'll have.
Couple of other quick tidbits for the time management plan as well:
1) Do as much as you can on the Sim questions; Cisco gives partial credit
2) After clicking the button for the next question, remove your hand from the mouse
Cisco does give partial credit on the Sims, so even if you can't make it all work, add the configuration that you know is part of the solution. On the second point, if you click next, and a pop-up appears, it probably means that you forgot something. Maybe you gave 2 answers, and the question needs 3. Maybe it's a testlet, and you forgot to answer all questions. Don't let your desire to go fast let you click quickly, and then realize that you clicked too soon. It's worth the time to click for the next question, and make sure you didn't get a warning message.
Now it's your turn. What do you do for time management on the test that's worked for you? The above is just one suggestion - one that I've personally used before, and had some success with. Also, just because one more click is cheap, here's another poll to get a sense for how people approach their Cisco exams. Three of the answers are obvious, but the answer "part math, part intuition" option means that you just look at the questions answered versus time taken, but to make adjustments for the time eaters, you make an educated guess, but nothing formal like I've described here.
Odom, CCIE No, 1624, splits time between writing books for Cisco Press and teaching classes for Skyline ATS. In his 25-ish years in the networking industry, he has worked as as a pre-sale and post-sale SE for a few networking vendors, as well as a network engineer implementing network technology. Wendell has spent the majority of the last 15 years teaching, consulting, and writing about networking technologies, most of which in some way relate to Cisco products. His books include titles on QoS, CCIE R/S, as well as several titles related to CCNA certification, including the September 2007 book CCNA Official Exam Certification Library (CCNA Exam 640-802) (Read a sneak peek of chapter 7). Click for the list of current titles by Wendell.
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Broken Links
Greetings...good article. However, the 3 links for the earlier articles is not working. Thanks...
Links fixed
Brad,
Thanks for the heads-up!
Wendell
ccna time management
I have taken the test twice and based on my results I will not move on to the next question until I have fully answered the question I am on unless 20 minutes have passed. Only 5 or 6 questions can be missed and you fail. So if I skip questions I am going to fail. I average 30 seconds on the multiple choice and 10 minutes on the dificult ones. Not knowing how many of the difficult ones is the problem. I finished the last test with 10 minutes left on the clock but still failed. I still ran into questions outside of my knowledge base.
Never thought about time.
When i did my CCNA, i never time never came into my head.
I studied hard, read and re-read stuff. I don't recall how much time i had left or how long i took.
I got stuck on a sim, and used the ? a few times, but got through.
Personally i think if you look at the time scale you may panic, and that would lead to mistakes. Certainly if you read the question and either don't understand what they are asking or think that you do not know it.
Rgds,
BE.
http://bigevilsciscoworld.wordpress.com/
Self fulfilling prophesy
BE,
So maybe I'm causing all this time pressure... wow, what power! ;-)
Seriously, though, it would be easy to look too much. Maybe look after question... 20, and then 30 only if the time was a little iffy. That would cut down on the effort, and maybe avoid the pysch-out effect. Or just do as you say, and solve it by preparing so well that the time is a non-issue.
thanks,
Wendell
New CCNP book..?
Hi Wendell,
I couldn't see any way to email you directly, so thought i'd post here..
There's a rumour spreading across the Internet that you're bringing out a new CCNP-level book, with a, shall we say, 'interesting' title..
As nothing appears official yet, i'm guessing you won't be able to say too much, but I just wondered what you are able to say on the subject??
I'm being vague on purpose, but i'm sure a lot of people would appreciate it if you could do a quick blog on the subject..
Cheers
Can't say...
Howdy Anon,
Thanks for asking. Unfortunately, I can only give my standard response anytime I'm asked, which is to say that I can't comment on future books. It's the publishers business, and I firmly err on the side of caution. (It makes for some dull conversation with work friends, always saying "I can't say...")
I can of course comment on announced products, so... my most recently announced is a new edition of the CCIE R/S Written Exam Cert Guide (http://www.ciscopress.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=1587059800).
Sorry, and thanks...
Wendell
Time.
I had heard that you had set your watch five minutes fast, this was a reaction in factor time outplaying the role of a fourth dimension. Thus trying to add a different sort than the spatial dimensions, students taking the CCNA found their time was going by quicker and once the exam was over everybody outside the exam room was one hour older. LOL...
I see you point Wendoll, looking at the clock in right hand corner is a good idea. I am not saying don't check the time clock throughout.
You would not be human if when you read a question on the CCNA and think "eh?" and have to re-read again or have to read all the answers three times at least.
Maybe most people get time scared as the CCNA is one the first Cisco exams they do, and lets face it no one ever say "man that was easy!" It is a hard exam.
BE.
http://bigevilsciscoworld.wordpress.com
Time Management
I took the Implementing QoS test a couple of days ago and the instructions stated that I could not take more than 10 minutes on a Sim question set. It was the first time that I had seen that restriction stated. From a practical aspect, that is still consistent with Wendell's model.
10 minute max on a Sim
BN,
wow - that's wierd. Wonder if they're protecting us from ourselves? I guess it's possible to have such good knowledge, but such relatively poor hands-on skill, that they'd not want you to pass if it really rok 15-20 minutes to finish a sim, but boy, tha's extreme. Thanks for the tidbit...
Wendell
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