I’ve been quiet this week and weekend for really one reason: took a stab at the CCNA test yesterday. I didn’t pass, but I didn’t expect to pass either. I was finding myself spinning my wheels more and more with my studying, especially since I’m not getting very much of a chance at work to get hands-on with the equipment we have. So I used the test period to get myself re-oriented on where I stand. I scored a 783 and needed 849 to pass. I was pretty happy as I felt I would do worse than that, even when taking the test. The bottom line, though, is that I get a chance to mix things up and refocus on what I stumbled on, what I didn’t expect, and what wasn’t tested that I did expect. Things look good, and I plan to retake the test in a couple weeks or so. Kinda like running a long race, passing the starting line and getting a look at the time to see whether I’m on pace or not and what I need to do to stay on pace to win out.

What I expected that didn’t happen: More detailed WAN questions on implementation commands and the minutae of such settings. Instead, I got two questions about what DLCIs do and how they relate to the local and remote routers, and one question about which WAN technology to choose given a situation. Heck, I even only got one OSPF question and one EIGRP question… Not much there with my luck of the draw.

What I didn’t expect: To not only be tested heavily on switch commands, but to actually stumble and not know those answers as quickly or accurately as I should. Definitely focusing on switches for a while, since I even have some at home! Ugh to having missed those! Switches, VTP, VLANs, STP.