Man! That CNA Exam was HARD!

[jonnyGURU]

I have to say, the CNA (Certified Networking Associate) exam I just took was probably harder than the MCSE Core Exams!

At least MCSE asked me practial questions like, "What's the maximum distance for CAT5 cable..." or "Which of the following are considered NAT devices...." or "What kind of media is used in a 10Base2 network...."

This test had questions like:

"Which interior protocol uses distance vector technology?"

"Which OSPF LSA type describes the state of the router's like to the area?"

"What is a routing technique that explicitly indicates a network segment is down or unreachable, rather than implying a network is unreachable by not including it in routing updates?"

Maybe I'm showing my ignorance, but.... Huh?

I've never needed to know this stuff.

It reminded me a lot of High School. "Why do I need to know this? I'll never use it!"

Thank god I aced the hardware, troubleshooting and "importance of documentation" portions of the test or I would've failed completely!

It took 58% to pass. I got a 60%.

It just goes to show... Just because you have experience; doesn't mean you can pass an exam without studying and just because you memorized the answers to an exam and passed it with flying colors, doesn't mean you can jump in with both feet without experience.

 

[trmiv]

CCNA? Me and a co-worker were just discussing that exam. He wants to take it, and I told him "be prepare to be bombarded with tons of inane questions."

 

[Feneant2]

I found the A+ practice test similar with unpractical questions like 'What is the 3F8 pin used for'.... good thing I am changing jobs and don't need any of these.

 

[jonnyGURU]

No. It wasn't Cisco's CNA. This was a generic CNA requirement I had to take prior to taking an Avaya IP Telephony exam in order to become an Avaya Certified Technician. The Avaya exam was a PIECE OF CAKE in comparison even though (or maybe BECAUSE) it was all proprietary information. The CNA covered such a broad range of networking knowledge that my head exploded. Grey matter all over Tech Sherpa's walls.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Originally posted by: Feneant2
I found the A+ practice test similar with unpractical questions....

At least the A+ was mostly easy questions and the test itself is so short that the answers you don't know you could easily memorize.

For some reason, I had trouble memorizing terms like "IEEE 802.3 is the standard that covers LAN's using CSMA/CD" and "Store and Forward is the feature that reads the entire frame before forwarding the packet." (one of the choices was "Hold and Forward".... DOH!)