CCNA Routing and Switching

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CCNA INTRO Official Exam Certification Guide
Types of Questions on the Exams
The ICND1, ICND2, and CCNA R&S exams all follow the same general format. At the
testing center, you sit in a quiet room with a PC. Before the exam timer begins, you have a
chance to do a few other tasks on the PC; for instance, you can take a sample quiz just to
get accustomed to the PC and the testing engine. Anyone who has user-level skills in getting
around a PC should have no problems with the testing environment. The question types are
■ Multiple-choice, single-answer
■ Multiple-choice, multiple-answer
■ Testlet (one scenario with several multiple-choice questions)
■ Drag-and-drop
■ Simulated lab (sim)
■ Simlet
You should take the time to learn as much as possible by using the Cisco Certification
Exam Tutorial, which you can find by going to Cisco.com and searching for “exam tutorial.”
This tool walks through each type of question Cisco may ask on the exam.
Although the first four types of questions in the list should be familiar to anyone who has
taken standardized tests or similar tests in school, the last two types are more common to IT
tests and Cisco exams in particular. Both use a network simulator to ask questions, so that
you control and use simulated Cisco devices. In particular:
■ Sim questions: You see a network topology, a lab scenario, and can access the devices.
Your job is to fix a problem with the configuration.
■ Simlet questions: This style combines sim and testlet question formats. Like a sim question,
you see a network topology, a lab scenario, and can access the devices. However,
like a testlet, you also see several multiple-choice questions. Instead of changing/fixing
the configuration, you answer questions about the current state of the network.
Using these two question styles with the simulator enables Cisco to test your configuration
skills with sim questions, and your verification and troubleshooting skills with simlet questions.
What’s on the CCNA Exams…and in the Book?
Ever since I was in grade school, whenever the teacher announced that we were having a
test soon, someone would always ask, “What’s on the test?” Even in college, people would
try to get more information about what would be on the exams. At heart, the goal is to
know what to study hard, what to study a little, and what to not study at all.
You can find out more about what’s on the exam from two primary sources: this book and
the Cisco website.
The Cisco Published Exam Topics
First, Cisco tells the world the specific topics on each of their certification exams. For
every Cisco certification exam, Cisco wants the public to know both the variety of topics