Stupid CISCO Exam!

[Falleron]

Ok, nothing to do with Macs! This is really getting me really annoyed!!! I am revising for an exam where the pass mark is between 80-82%!!! If that was not hard enough, questions like this make me loose my rag. The question was about different types of switching + the answer is Store-and-forward + Cut-Through. However, I put exactly the same answer just without the “-“! Guess what, it marks me wrong! I think that is so unfair! Not only do you have to know the correct answer but exactly how they format the answer. In some cases I don’t see how this is possible.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Falleron
Ok, nothing to do with Macs! This is really getting me really annoyed!!! I am revising for an exam where the pass mark is between 80-82%!!! If that was not hard enough, questions like this make me loose my rag. The question was about different types of switching + the answer is Store-and-forward + Cut-Through. However, I put exactly the same answer just without the “-“! Guess what, it marks me wrong! I think that is so unfair! Not only do you have to know the correct answer but exactly how they format the answer. In some cases I don’t see how this is possible.

cisco makes their tests hard so they have more respect in the industry than the common microsoft certifications

cisco needed to do something...they certainly don't have the promise of huge success like microsoft, so the only thing they can basically boast about now is that their techies are better than the microsoft techies

wide area networks looked like they were going to take over the industry during dot.com, but since the bust, cisco took a huge hit since they basd their phenomenal growth and spending on the hope that dot.com would increase greatly over the years...bad mistake and now the ceo and company is being called on their strange accounting practices

whatever happens with cisco's future, either study the material or study and actually get a cisco certification...even if cisco itself tanks because the groundwork cisco put into WAN technology will most certainly be the standard to come for many years

another thing that threatens cisco are the home based routers which become cheaper and more capable each month and that is not a market cisco prepared for either

to me, cisco is the apple III, capable, yet too expensive for most to own

where i live, i will stick with the microsoft certification set because of the prevalence of M$ and study cisco just in case;)

[Falleron]

I may look into a M$ certificate at some point in the next couple of years. However, at the moment CISCO is keeping me busy!

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Falleron
I may look into a M$ certificate at some point in the next couple of years. However, at the moment CISCO is keeping me busy!

among techies, the cisco certs are a badge of honor

but ms stuff is more bread and butter and practical

very few have time for both since one has to spend some time actually working in the field

usually, one with many certs is most likely:

1) paper tiger...one who collects certifications but is not fully in the field

2) certification or computer educator...in the field in so far as they teach the field and hatch techies into the wide world of IS/IT

usually, two certs is fine for most techies and more certs should have a darn good justification;)

[peterjhill]

I am one exam (support) away from my CCNP. I took the foundation exam (routing, switching, and remote access) at the Networkers (Cisco conference) this year and passed with a nice margin. I really just need to go and schedule the support exam, I have the Cisco Press book and took the practice exam and passed it on the first try. The CCNP is much more difficult to attain than the MSCE (IMHO). Plus a Cisco certification (CCNP, that is) will do fairly well in helping you get a job. Nothing beats experience though. A CCNA will help get an entry level job, maybe not doing core routing, but enough to help a company manage their desktop switches.

As for Cisco being compared to an Apple III, they are the market leaders. They are not into the home lan equipment market. Why should they be. They are still doing very well, even with Dell entering the enterprise switching market and juniper releasing their terabit routers. Cisco is not going to go out of business. They have a ton of cash and a nice profit margin, and good equipment. That doesn't mean that I am not having lunch with our Cisco rep next monday and meeting with Juniper's people on Tuesday.

Cisco is still very strong in the LAN market. The 6509 will be getting new Sup3's very soon, and new modules that will knock the socks off of anything else in the market. The Cat4000 and 4500 are damn good edge and distribution switches. Their new wireless access points are incredible, with 802.11a/b/g support (g when it comes out with a card swap of the b card.)

Finally, the CCIE certification will pretty much guarentee that you never need to look for a job ever again, and will have multiple offers with six figure salaries. My goal is to take the written exam next summer.

BTW, I would highly recommend the Cisco press books. They just released a new book that is helpful for the new CCNA exam format. They have the book on a cd plus excellent sample questions. They go into more depth than other books, which will be helpful in figuring out some more complex questions. Also, make sure that you can do the binary math necessary to figure out VLSM and CIDR subnet masks, # hosts per subnet, broadcast addresses, base addresses. My CCNA had 5 questions on this, which is pretty much how many questions you can miss at max and not fail.

[Falleron]

I have 2 cisco books for the CCNA. However, it has errors in the testing engine - some of the questions have the wrong answers! There are also questions that say pick two of the answers + it has radio buttons + so you can only select 1!

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by peterjhill
I am one exam (support) away from my CCNP. I took the foundation exam (routing, switching, and remote access) at the Networkers (Cisco conference) this year and passed with a nice margin. I really just need to go and schedule the support exam, I have the Cisco Press book and took the practice exam and passed it on the first try. The CCNP is much more difficult to attain than the MSCE (IMHO). Plus a Cisco certification (CCNP, that is) will do fairly well in helping you get a job. Nothing beats experience though. A CCNA will help get an entry level job, maybe not doing core routing, but enough to help a company manage their desktop switches.

As for Cisco being compared to an Apple III, they are the market leaders. They are not into the home lan equipment market. Why should they be. They are still doing very well, even with Dell entering the enterprise switching market and juniper releasing their terabit routers. Cisco is not going to go out of business. They have a ton of cash and a nice profit margin, and good equipment. That doesn't mean that I am not having lunch with our Cisco rep next monday and meeting with Juniper's people on Tuesday.

Cisco is still very strong in the LAN market. The 6509 will be getting new Sup3's very soon, and new modules that will knock the socks off of anything else in the market. The Cat4000 and 4500 are damn good edge and distribution switches. Their new wireless access points are incredible, with 802.11a/b/g support (g when it comes out with a card swap of the b card.)

Finally, the CCIE certification will pretty much guarentee that you never need to look for a job ever again, and will have multiple offers with six figure salaries. My goal is to take the written exam next summer.

BTW, I would highly recommend the Cisco press books. They just released a new book that is helpful for the new CCNA exam format. They have the book on a cd plus excellent sample questions. They go into more depth than other books, which will be helpful in figuring out some more complex questions. Also, make sure that you can do the binary math necessary to figure out VLSM and CIDR subnet masks, # hosts per subnet, broadcast addresses, base addresses. My CCNA had 5 questions on this, which is pretty much how many questions you can miss at max and not fail.

the reason i mentioned the apple III is because it was a good, yet expensive computer

cisco makes great gear...the very best and they are the standard

but cisco, business wise, is on very shaky ground...that is the topic here...dollars and cents

i live near cisco and know people who work in an around cisco and the feeling over here in northern california is very gloom and doom

as a matter of fact, most of silicon valley is full of bad vibes and a lot of out of work, yet highly qualified techies

but like always, san jose and surrounding areas will ride this tech downturn and there are pretty good indications that the dot.com revolution will be back on track and that would help cisco (at the height of the dot.com revolution, cisco's valuation was higher than microsoft...granted, only for one day, but it was exciting)

some dot.com stocks in the gutter are bargains and people who own them will become rich...very rich...but as to who will survive when the pendulum swings back to the center

dot.com and WAN related businesses became way over valued, and then crashed and are currently way under valued and it is not a matter of if they bounce back, it's just a matter of when

and when it does, if cisco survives, there will be a window of time when it will be ripe to buy cisco stock

but whether cisco survives or not, WAN technology is always good to learn

many techies who got novell certified are doing very well even though microsoft came up in the LAN field and novell is currently not doing great...some say M$ stole some of novell's stuff/ideas but WHO ever hear of microsoft copying or ripping off a fellow high technology company;) :p

anyway, good luck peter j hill, on your CCNP and in the s. valley, CCNP is way more respected than the MCSEs

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Falleron
I have 2 cisco books for the CCNA. However, it has errors in the testing engine - some of the questions have the wrong answers! There are also questions that say pick two of the answers + it has radio buttons + so you can only select 1!

some people work with cisco press books, like me

but also exam prep, o'reilly's, and others ...and they are good for foundation study

i took transcenders and certify.com prep tests to get ready for the MCP exam and it was a super help...the books gave me general knowledge of the concepts and the prep tests gave me specific knowledge of the test

real world experience is the most important step and that only comes with time and is the factor that will keep your hired or keep the work coming

a certification(s) is a good way to get a foot in the door...even more so than a high tech related college/university degree, but get that, too and you most certainly will get that foot in the door somewhere

you will always see high level and highly paid techies who don't have degrees or certs, but don't worry about them...as they mock your education and or certifications because they got there by being in the field a long time and they took a lot of time to get in in the first place

that degree and/or cert will get your foot in the door faster and while you may never catch up with those self taught techies, you will have a good job and better pay than most fields

also realize a lot of those self taught techs who are still in the field and usually the lead techies are geeks with a capital G and you have to ask yourself if you are one of them

but go for the cisco and microsoft certs as they will be good for some time to come...but if another company cert or technology becomes all too important to learn or get certified in, don't be faithful to one company and always be willing to learn and relearn and enter each day with a humble spirit

my other 2 cents;)

[Falleron]

Cheers for the info. I am finding that MOST companies wont even look at me because I dont have any experience!

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Falleron
Cheers for the info. I am finding that MOST companies wont even look at me because I dont have any experience!

if you have no experience, it is better to have no experience and a certification

...or no experience and a degree

...or no experience and both

even though i send my overflow techie work to experienced techies only, there are bigger tech businesses who have SO MUCH work that they exhaust even their experienced employees and/or peers and at some point need to send work/jobs to inexperienced techies

and when that happens, they will send work to the inexperienced techie with a cert/degree before they send it to an inexperienced techie with none of the above

when you get that first break, then you can say you now have experience, even if it's just a small amount

almost all of us started small in a company or by ourselves and as time went on, then we became more experienced

i have been a techie for three years now and certified for almost that long and i still consider myself a beginner so it's a long path, but will get shortened if you get some piece of paper to hang on your wall

ps - don't hang it on the wall at your job since that could breed resentment, unless it is some sort of company policy

a lot of small tech shops, a good place to start, have all their certs displayed for customers to see...even though the customer really does not know what they really mean;)

[evildead]

Originally posted by Falleron
Cheers for the info. I am finding that MOST companies wont even look at me because I dont have any experience!


And the funy thing is that once your working, you probably wont need any Certificates. I'm going to take a CISCO class next semester (CISCO crams 2 terms worth of stuff into 1 semester so you can take the test after 2 semesters of classes) I'm not planning on taking the test after the classes... my job wont care if I have it or not.. but they like that I took the classes. If I have time... maybe ill take them just to have another Cert under my belt.. I guess It couldnt hert anything...

-evildead

[vniow]

I don' know if this could help or not, but my dad works as Cisco and maybe could help you out a bit.
He checks his e-mail close to never though.:p
Just let me know and I'll see if I can contact him.:)

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by evildead



And the funy thing is that once your working, you probably wont need any Certificates. I'm going to take a CISCO class next semester (CISCO crams 2 terms worth of stuff into 1 semester so you can take the test after 2 semesters of classes) I'm not planning on taking the test after the classes... my job wont care if I have it or not.. but they like that I took the classes. If I have time... maybe ill take them just to have another Cert under my belt.. I guess It couldnt hert anything...

-evildead

if you are going thru the entire cisco academy, go for the ccna...it will be worth more in the real world than a degree...i used to be hr person and certs speak loudly for foot in door for companies, etc...

i am not anti-education since i am a networking teacher and i have two degrees from college/university and working on third

but the ccna will mean a lot for other job hunting sorties in the future...at least more than a degree...but like i said before on this thread...cover all bases and go for certs and degrees and you will get foot in door, if you are not already in some door, already

but if you are deep into the field with several years under your belt and going strong, disregard my above comments;) :D :p :)

[Falleron]

Well, in the near future I will have the CCNA + already have a joint degree in Computing + Geography. Strange mix I know - I like to keep my options open.

[peterjhill]

I went from a job bartending and managing a restaurant to Technology Coordinator of a pair of private high schools. It was hard work, but good experience. You might look for similar opportunities. It was a great learning experience, and where I went from thinking I would focus on Windows and Mac support to strict networking (ie IP). Now I am a Network Engineer at Carnegie Mellon University. Colleges are also great places to get experience. I don't get paid as much as I would in a business, but I get to work with leading edge technology, such as IPv6, 802.11a, VoIP. Since we are not driven by the bottom line, we get to learn about alot of new things. It will also be great for my next job along my career path. Think about that. I set up a friend in my old job at the high school, and he just interviewed for a level 2 network tech where I work.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Falleron
Well, in the near future I will have the CCNA + already have a joint degree in Computing + Geography. Strange mix I know - I like to keep my options open.

always keep your options open for other fields

another fun little tidbit i learned about the high tech industry as an hr person is that next to air traffic controllers, computer related jobs have the highest burnout rate ;)

i was in microsoft school in silicon valley during the height of dot.com and even though things were booming, the pizza delivery man walked into class and knew more about network engineering than anybody in the class

he said, "oh, i used to be a tech and was certified but now i deliver pizzas...and i don't miss the high tech field at all"

before that, i met a certified techie who was just finishing junior college and wanted to leave high tech and become an artist in advertising...he does artwork for a credit card company and he loves it

my mentor became a great fine artist after years of being a computer tech making ridiculously high amounts of money, but the money lost its novelty as it soon does in any job if one burns out

on the other hand, i met an ex airline pilot who was in my A+ computer repair class, and there is a physician and a chiropractor in the cisco class

the grass is always greener on the other side and any job is better than a high tech job in northern california...:p