I’m just curious to see if any Dopers have written their CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam?
How did you do? If you passed how many times did you have to write it?
Here’s why I’m asking, I have been working with computers for 15 years, and been working with networks for about 10.
I took Global Knowledge’s 5 day course “Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices” course about a year ago. I didn’t have much of a chance to apply my knowledge (our company is primarily a Nortel shop with ~150 Nortel switches) until the summer when I was put on a project that uses Cisco gear in a HA configuration (2 load balancing routers, going to 2 2950 switches, going to 2 Pix Firewalls, going to 2 3750 switches going to 4 servers).
The problem with working on this gear and their configurations is that they are much more advanced than the testable CCNA material.
So I took a 5 day Global Knowledge CCNA boot camp last December, unfortunately it was in Seattle when there was that big-ass wind storm and the last day of classes was cancelled (no power).
I had pre-scheduled to write my exam the next week. So i went and wrote the exam, I had 3 simulator questions (my instructor said you should only have 1 or 2) and I ran out of time. So i didn’t get the 3rd simulator working, and didn’t answer the last 7 questions. I failed (547 out of 1000, a pass is 849).
Now because I missed the last day of classes, Global Knowledge enrolled me in a virtual CCNA boot camp for free. I took that and re-wrote the exam, this time I got 835 out of 1000 (still need 849 to pass).
So I waited a couple of weeks and wrote a third time and got the exact same mark (835) WTF are the chances of that?
I know it’s supposed to be hard to get, but I consider myself pretty smart when it comes to networking. I can pretty much subnet in my head, and have a pretty firm grasp on routing protocols and have no problem using Cisco CLI. After writing 3 times I’m kind of getting a complex (I have never struggled this much with anything associated with computers and/or networking).
I heard Cisco had changed the test because there were too many “Paper CCNA’s”, so has anybody here re-certified and experienced the old to the new exam?
I’m really just hoping someone will say “yeah MtM that exam is a bitch, took me 3 tries to re-certify” and not “whoa short bus alert, what do you mean you’ve written it 3 times and haven’t passed?”.
MtM