Subject: Networking Essentials

I took Networking Essentials yesterday and passed with a 931. It was my first test and I was surprised at its simplicity. I read the Networking Essentials Exam Cram book, took and studied the four Transcender tests, and used Sybex's book to fill in any gaps. I studied off and on for about 10. Based on my performance with the Transcender tests I expected to squeek by with a low 800 on the real test. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. I looked at the Braindumps prior to taking the test and got a little frustrated. My recommendation is to ignore any so called answers that people provide... they are very often wrong. One guy even put *** by the answers he just knew were right and I still found glaring errors. Use the Braindumps to see what questions appear on the exam and then lookup the answers on your own. With this in mind here are the questions I remember encountering... Two scenario questions concerning Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York. Both questions suggested using T1 lines to connect the cities. One question proposed using two T1's and the other proposed using three. Two questions about a workstation not getting onto the network. These seems like a pretty common question so I will mention that the answer both times appeared to be that the wrong transceiver type was selected.

Two questions about a workstation using IPX not being able to access a file server. Again, this appears to be a common question so I will mention that differing frame types seemed to be the answer.

Two questions about what IRQ a NIC could use in a particular computer. In both questions the inital setting was conflicting with another device. In one question you had to identify the device in conflict and in the other you had to select an available IRQ to change the NIC to.

One question where two workstations were failing to get on the network. The question provided a list of identical settings shared by the two NICS. The MAC address was identical for both NICs and I felt this explained why the machines would not get on the network.

A question where I had to check off which protocols were routable. The list included TCP/IP, NetBEUI, DLC, IPX, and perhaps more.

Two sceraio questions at the end where your goal was to decrease network utilization. The first seemed pretty straight forward. It proposed upgrading to Fast Ethernet and a few other things. The second one was a little over my head and I just guessed. It suggested decreasing the Max ethernet packet size and increasing the receive window (or something to that effect). I considered this the trickiest question only because the resources I had for studying didn't cover this material in much detail.

I can't stress enough how helpful I found the Exam Cram and the  Transcenders. The Transcenders had many questions that were almost word for word what I saw on the test. I think I'm going to study for TCP/IP next. I figure I've spent two weeks cramming my head with network terminology so I might as well stay on the same track. After that I'll worry about the NT stuff.