You know they're coming, but then it happens - you click for the next question, and it's one of the dreaded Sims. Do you break into a cold sweat? Freeze? Rush? Or do you approach these questions with confidence, ready to find the problem, fix it, and claim all the points, and be rewarded for how well you prepared? This week, I'll ramble a bit about how to prepare and approach questions
First, a quick review of few interesting points. More than half of us surveyed on the last post have no time management strategy to speak of going into the CCNA exams. Wow. I figured that a low percentage of us would be as picky as me with time management, but given the fact that time pressure seems to be a common issue, the percentage without a particular plan surprised me. For those of you who've not read the earlier posts in this series, take a few moments to look at our survey of exam-day CCNA issues - the Sim and Simlets were chosen about 15% (each) of the time as the biggest reasons why the exams may be difficult. I'll look at Sims today, and maybe give a few words on Simlets before I'm done.
So, I sat at Panera's today, sipping my coffee, and contemplating this whole topic. (That's my reward for doing the blog - a coffee at Penera's, instead of sitting in dungeon - I mean office - another morning.) Anyway, I think there's probably three approaches that one could take towards a Sim question, whether intentional or by accident. (If you use another, tell me...)
See the problem and react: With this approach, you read the problem, and whatever pops to mind, you go look. A can't ping B? Go to the router nearest A, and do your top 3-4 shows. Ping B from that closest-to-A router. Do a quick show run. Whatever comes to mind, relying on your experience and intuition to find the answer quickly.
Structured troubleshooting: While no one troubleshooting methodology works for all people, you can take a structured approach to troubleshooting. (I've even got some material dedicated to just that in my books, in part because it's inside the scope of CCNA as an end to itself.) Following such a plan can lead to identifying the root cause. Compared to "see problem and react", you probably find the answer in a more consistent amount of time, whereas "see and react" may find the problem quickly.
Show run to the max: The answer to a Sim problem is to change the config. So, doing an inspection of a show run on all the Cisco devices in a Sim may reveal the problem quickly, particularly if you have mastered the configuration steps.
I've pondered this many times, including today at the coffee shop: if your only goal is to get Sim's right on the exam, what's the best approach? I have often concluded that doing show run, particularly for CCNA, will get you to the answer fastest. If it gives you heartburn to rely just on show run, and nothing else, you can always do a few other show commands to confirm what you find in the show run commands. EG, if you find that the RIP config does not have a network command that matches interface F0/0, you can then confirm it with a show ip protocols, confirm it by going to the other router connected to that same LAN and see that it learned no RIP routes, etc.
However, you can't just show up on exam day and decide that since Wendell said that the "show run to the max" strategy would work best that you should do exactly that. You need to do a little bit of preparation. And maybe we would need a some more obvious practice tools as well. To be ready for the "show run" strategy, I think you'd need to do the following:
The first two tasks are somewhat obvious. Read my books, or someone else's, and make sure you get it. Practice on your favorite hardware, Sim, or Emulator. (See many past posts this year for discussions on that front. But this 3rd item I think can be the difference between being a good "see problem and react" person and someone who can look at "show run" and quickly find the problem.
Of course, I want to know what everybody out there uses. Here's a poll. Then flip over to the next page, and I'll look at this config checklist tool in a little more detail.
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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I agree..somewhat
When doing the Sims, I agree that often "Show Run" is all you need. Especially if you know what a correct configuration should look like. If you know the material really well, the wrong/missing/extra configuration stands out like a sore thumb.
But I think its important for people to realize you'll most likely need to know other show commands for the Simlets. The Simlets usually ask specific questions about the topology, that can't always be answered by looking at the config. The only advantage with the Simlets is the questions are in multiple choice, which I think settles a lot of people's fears. People view Sims as scary because the answer is very open ended, and everyone fears that they might have missed something.
Violent agreement
AS,
Thanks for the input. My bad on not being clear on the terms - this post was specific to Sims, not Simlets. (I'm sure lots of folks would assume that they're one category.) Simlets require a whole different approach, particular because "show run" may not even be available (if they do give you the enable password). I even started writing today's post as one post on how to approach both Sims and Simlets, and as you see, I got carried away a bit just writing about the Sims. Not that you're not allowed to disagree - just think we're on the same page this time. ;-)
Cheers,
WO
Point to the main problem
I think the best choice is to go for a specific methodology.
Read the whole question first,do show run (at firs).After that you should try to point to the main problem and subproblems.The picture of the simulation can be very helpful to determine which routng protocol to go for and interfaces to run.
You should not take more than 15 minutes to complete a simulation(If you're a good student) and remember always to go from general to specific issue.
PS: If doesn't hurt to check your work and do some ping and show command when you're done.
Did it again...
I have been following this blog for quite a while now. And so I got curious and decided to take the CCNA exam (640-802) again -> 10 years after I did it the last time. Okay, I have to admit, I worked with Cisco gear for the last 10 years...
I was really surprised about the current test! If I compare it to the last time (at least what I remember from it), now everything was nicely coloured, the wording of the questions was WAY better and there was a 30 minute time bonus for candidates that are not native english speakers - like me.
I took the tutorial at the beginning (yes, it´s time consuming) and thought to myself "Wow, amazing, this can be fun". So I started with the test and found the drag-and-drop questions pretty easy. I loved the SIMS! If you have hand-on experience with Cisco gear, I think it´s way better than the stupid "checkbox questions" I even had a question where - after completition - I was able to verify my config with a ping to a given host. That´s cool! (I think I did not break the NDA with that info...).
But yes, I understand, If you are really a newbie to that whole IOS stuff, it is probably more challenging than it was with the CCNA test in the "old days"...
Good luck to all the candidates!
Ah,BTW - just for the records - I got 965 points and finished 40 minutes early. :-)
I passed the CCNA recently
I passed the CCNA recently (after failing it once) and found this blog after searching the Internet to see if others thought the test was as hard as I thought it was...glad I am not alone. By far the hardest cert I've ever sat for (and I have quite a few).
I agree 100% with the above advice given by W.O. I went further by constructing mnemonic (sp?) phrases to remember strings of commands and the number of words that were in particular configuration command strings (one had 8, some had 5, I recall) so that I could reduce the stress of recall and application because for me the biggest issue with the test was the stress of taking it--you need things and/or straegies you can easily recall through the stress and panic that the test (and the testing environment) can induce. Breathing execises also helped, but most of all, simple algorithms with a set series of commands like above.
Passed the exam without the sims
I hadn't taken the CCNA since 2001. By the way the new one is far harder. When I recertified this Feb, I just said to myself that I would take note of the clock and not spend more than 1/2 hour on any of the sims.
Well, when you are concentrating on doing the sims, the time really flies by. There was one really complex sim that I just had to abandon after a half an hour.
It hurts your pride, but one of the things I think they are looking for is time management skills. If I had kept going on that one sim a would have failed for sure.
So, I passed without one of the sims.
It's not the material as much as the presentation
I took a Cisco test about a year and a half ago. The sim questions were a nightmare, not because of the difficulty of the problem, but the way in which it was presented.
The testing center monitors were 15 inch, with 800 x 600 resolution. That only allowed me to see a third of the diagram, or a third of the configurations, or a third of the question, at any one time. Being able to view 1/9 of the information required to complete the sim made it extremely time consuming.
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