CCNA

Cisco Agreement

Accepting the terms of Cisco Career Certification and Confidentiality Agreement is a very important part of obtaining Cisco Certification, failing which the application processing of certification may be halted.

Validity

CCNA certifications are valid for three years.

Exam Description

The 640-801 is the exam available for aspirants pursuing Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Certification. Since 640-607 has retired, the article solely concentrates on the 640-801. The CCNA (640-801) exam focuses on the Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices (ICND) course as well as the new Introduction to Cisco Networking Technologies (INTRO) course. The courses and the exam ensure that the successful candidate has the important knowledge and skills necessary to select, connect, configure, and troubleshoot the various Cisco networking devices. The exam also includes topics on Extending Switched Networks with VLANS, Determining IP Routes, Managing IP traffic with Access Lists, Establishing Point-to-Point connections, and Establishing Frame Relay Connections.

There will be router/switch simulator questions, many multiple choice questions, and a few drag-and-drop questions, along with a few Multiple Choice Single Response and fill in the blank types of questions.

When switching between the simulator-based questions and the rest of the exam, the simulator engine may seem a little slow. For some simulator-based questions, you will be presented with scenarios. You need to remember configuration commands and listing commands to grasp the scenarios and troubleshoot them. Remember to have a blank sheet on which you can mark important points and remember to save any changes you make on the simulator relating to the configuration. The simulator is very much like the real one on the routers and switches, except that abbreviated editing and help commands may not be available. Ensure that you do not try these abbreviated commands and waste time; it is always better to use the entire syntax of any command you may be required to use.

Some concepts, such as the OSI model, the Access lists, the Subnetting, etc., are such that questions on them may be time consuming, as they require single-minded concentration, very clear basics, and some amount of calculation. The scenario type of questions need an eye for detailed and clear analytical abilities. Be clear with the command line configuration commands and their switches, and have an insight into the kind of testing the vendor may employ. That should help you have a CCNA Certificate under your belt.

The various testing methods a vendor (Prometric, in this case) may employ are as follows (pertaining to the CCNA exam):

Multiple Choice Single Response

The simplest one of the lot usually comes in between many complicated questions, to relax your brains and prepare you for the worst to come. This type sometimes may not fetch much score. If you are not aware of the answer, do not waste time guessing it. Skip the question and move to the next. It is the most common question type used in most exams; the response choices will be adjacent to radio buttons, which indicates that there can be only one correct answer to the question.

Multiple Choice Multiple Response

Checkboxes will replace radio buttons to indicate that there can be more than one correct answer, and it may range from two to four at times. The questions may, at times, state the number of correct choices. But the tricky part is, when the question states choose all that apply. Here, even if one choice is skipped, the answer may not be complete, and may not fetch the desired score.
Another hint here is, more the number of choices presented to the candidate to choose from, more may be the number of correct answers, when compared with usual. If there are 5 or 6 choices presented, it means there will be at least 3 correct choices, out of the available choices.

Fill in the Blank

The standard fill in the blank type of questions may have a single answer. It may also have three blanks to be filled and all the three in a single choice, making it a single response or may have the three blanks mentioned as three individual choices too, making it a multiple response type of a question. In other words, the fill in the blanks question may be a single response or a multiple response, with definitely multiple choices to choose from.

Drag-and-Drop Questions

In these type of questions, a number of elements may be presented and you may be required to drag the element from its current placeholder to the appropriate location on the screen to arrive at the correct choice of answer. You will usually be presented with more items than required to complete the picture, to confuse you. This type of a question may appear as a graphical match the following or a logical diagram of a particular process, or theory slightly out of place, which you may have to rearrange.

Simulator Questions

These type of questions simulate the administrative environment and are very similar to the real one, and expect you to carry out an administrative task to complete the question task. For example, you may be presented with a hyper terminal screen and asked to remotely configure a switch or a router as you would in real environment, using the relevant commands. The final result will be graded, versus the path or the process you took to arrive at the result; therefore if the question says use the easiest method to achieve the task when there is more than one way of doing it and you choose the less easier one you will not receive the expected score at all.