Passed 640-802

[GrayhenTor]

Passed 640-802 today ; scored 874 . This was my second attempt after narrowly failing with 790 a couple of months ago.
Not thrilled with the score because I feel I'd be well into the 900's if only there were 10 minutes more time on this exam. I really had to rush the second half of the exam. Oh well.. a pass is a pass.

My preparation was a bit unusual in that the only book I used was the "CCNA ExamCram (3rd Edition )" book.
The Exam Cram series of books have always been just right for me, but this one is a mess ; lots of mistakes in it and some things not explained properly - I had to un-learn, then re-learn, some things after reading this book. My advice : avoid this book and stick to some of the others that people here are using instead.

Most valuable for me were :
1) the Boson Exam simulations ; used in Study mode, their explanations were very clear and included relevant links to cisco.com technotes for each question
2) GNS3 (or "VMWare for Cisco routers" as I like to think of it !). Created labs to implement and troubleshoot all aspects of RIP (v1 and 2), EIGRP, OSPF, FrameRelay, ACLs, NAT'ing etc etc

Learn subnetting/summarizing inside out. Preferably to the point that you can do it in your head as that will save you a lot of time in the exam .. and exam time is very tight indeed.
"subnettingquestions.com" is very useful here.

Somebody here suggested budgeting for two attempts at the exam. That's good advice if you're doing 640-802, rather than the two seperate exams, and also I'd say that if you do fail it then don't despair but address the weak areas and re-book it as soon as possible - don't wait a couple of months like I did!

In hindsight, I would have done better with different/better books and also I should have got hold of a couple of switches as I did no lab work on switching , spanning tree, port-security etc, though these topics aren't so difficult IMO. ( A couple of days ago I saw an article about setting up switching in GNS3 using 3640 routers with switch modules in them. I don't know if that's a possible solution .. it might be worth a try)

Next cert for me will be the MCITP EMA (Exchange 2010) track starting with , I believe, the 70-662 . But I'll be coming back for more Cisco punishment after that !

Thanks to everyone on these excellent forums for your expertise, advice and words of encouragement. Good luck to everyone... whatever your quest is.

Now.. to celebrate !
Terry
P.S Sorry for the long post but I'm happy/gushing !

[billscott92787]

Originally Posted by GrayhenTor

Passed 640-802 today ; scored 874 . This was my second attempt after narrowly failing with 790 a couple of months ago.
Not thrilled with the score because I feel I'd be well into the 900's if only there were 10 minutes more time on this exam. I really had to rush the second half of the exam. Oh well.. a pass is a pass.

My preparation was a bit unusual in that the only book I used was the "CCNA ExamCram (3rd Edition )" book.
The Exam Cram series of books have always been just right for me, but this one is a mess ; lots of mistakes in it and some things not explained properly - I had to un-learn, then re-learn, some things after reading this book. My advice : avoid this book and stick to some of the others that people here are using instead.

Most valuable for me were :
1) the Boson Exam simulations ; used in Study mode, their explanations were very clear and included relevant links to cisco.com technotes for each question
2) GNS3 (or "VMWare for Cisco routers" as I like to think of it !). Created labs to implement and troubleshoot all aspects of RIP (v1 and 2), EIGRP, OSPF, FrameRelay, ACLs, NAT'ing etc etc

Learn subnetting/summarizing inside out. Preferably to the point that you can do it in your head as that will save you a lot of time in the exam .. and exam time is very tight indeed.
"subnettingquestions.com" is very useful here.

Somebody here suggested budgeting for two attempts at the exam. That's good advice if you're doing 640-802, rather than the two seperate exams, and also I'd say that if you do fail it then don't despair but address the weak areas and re-book it as soon as possible - don't wait a couple of months like I did!

In hindsight, I would have done better with different/better books and also I should have got hold of a couple of switches as I did no lab work on switching , spanning tree, port-security etc, though these topics aren't so difficult IMO. ( A couple of days ago I saw an article about setting up switching in GNS3 using 3640 routers with switch modules in them. I don't know if that's a possible solution .. it might be worth a try)

Next cert for me will be the MCITP EMA (Exchange 2010) track starting with , I believe, the 70-662 . But I'll be coming back for more Cisco punishment after that !

Thanks to everyone on these excellent forums for your expertise, advice and words of encouragement. Good luck to everyone... whatever your quest is.

Now.. to celebrate !
Terry
P.S Sorry for the long post but I'm happy/gushing !

Awesome dude, congrats on the pass! The extra studying definitely paid off. What is next on your agenda?

[blackninja]

Congrats, best of luck on the M$ stuff, prepare to be bored though - I was.

[elphrank0]

Congrats! I too had to take 640-802 twice. I feel your pain.

[brucewhunter]

[QUOTE=GrayhenTor;375884]Passed 640-802 today ;

Right on !!!

From the posts a second try is almost the norm. I know about the 790 mark. I hit that one 3 times on my CWNA.
I'm due to write 802 on the 25th of Feb.