CIT Exam - Difficult? 4

[helpdeskdan]

For those who have taken the current CIT exam (preferably in the past couple of years):

How does this test compare to the other three? Easier than the BCRAN? Harder than the BCMSN? Recommended study material?

Many thanks,
-Dan

 

[gwildfire]

I took this one about 3 months ago. I found it the easiest of the lot.

The Exam certification guide from cisco is utter Trash! what a waste of time.

Having said that I have worked in a fault finding enviroment for many years and so my mind set was prepared.

I would reccomend reading over the over 3 books, concentrate on debugs and faults.

Do some labs with breaking stuff and fixing it.

Make sure you know your show commands and which ones to use as and when.

Sims very easy from what I remember.

I would also do the Knet series if you have it.

This link was my main source and the most usefull, the DOCcd is your friend!

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/itg_v1/index.htm

Visit

http://www.Cisco-Engineer.com

for free Cisco rack access.

CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP, CCIE R&S (Written), Net+, MCP, NCTS

 

[NettableWalker]

Arrrgh! failure.

I got a 770 and the pass mark was 804. I actually thought the pass mark was 750 so would have been alright. funny eh?

It was quite a hard exam: lots of ISDN, PAP/CHAP, IPSEC, OSPF, EIGRP, etc etc, and you do need to know the stuff in quite a lot of detail, as you would expect i guess.

I would hope that next time i will be able to pass. It's not too far out of reach.

(Can i have a star to cheer me up?)

MCP,CCA,CCNA, Net+, Half CCNP...

 

[leedsit]

Here`s your star for effort as I know its a tough one...

I took that exam a while back and took 2 attempts, but got there in the end. It is tricky and does test you on stuff you passed in the other 3 exams.... but Keep it up, you`ll get there...

LEEroy
MCNE6,CCNP,CWNA,CCSA,Project+

 

[helpdeskdan]

Wow, this cisco guide is a kind of a disappointment. I'm not sure why some think it is so great.

Thanks for the tip gwildfire! NettableWalker, how did you feel the test compared to the other three? Any other tips people have would be much appreciated.

 

[NettableWalker]

I've only done BCRAN and BCMSN and it was tougher than those. The labs were easy, but it asked a lot of pretty obscure questions, such as isdn troublshooting and pap/chap handshaking. Certainly i will now re-read all the books and go over the silly little bits that i previously thought they wouldn't bother with.

A bit disappointing, but i'm hopeful for next time.

Hard to know what to recommend for others except to read the books and give it a go.

MCP,CCA,CCNA, Net+, Half CCNP...

 

[techkiwi]

Thinking about the other three exams, would you say it covered stuff from them equally?

I'm going through the BCMSN book at the moment and what you've said sounds like I would be better off concentrating on BSCI and BCRAN material.

 

[NettableWalker]

There was a lot of inter-vlan routing, router on a stick style, and various trunking questions. Yes, it was a fair mix of all 3 books, and tended towards lots of small questions that required a really quite detailed understanding of a wide range of topics.

MCP,CCA,CCNA, Net+, Half CCNP...

 

[helpdeskdan]

Good points - much of that is on the BCRAN. I would take that one next if I were you, NettableWalker. I found the BCRAN to be the hardest. I took it a couple weeks ago - will post my experience if any requests.

 

[gwildfire]

As I said it depends on your experience with Fault finding and debugs. So you bought the Exam cert guide huh? told you it was paper weight!

Sorry to hear you Failed Nett, Focus on the shows and debug outputs from the other books. Especially the IPsec stuff,

You werent a million miles away, how did you fair on the sims? do you think with a couple of weeks you could take another run at it?

I might sound basic but I printed the exam objectives out, layed out my other books and used the CIT to put my coffee on, then I used the link above (cisco Troubleshooting guide) and work through the exam objectives.


Im sure you will be fine next time


Visit

http://www.Cisco-Engineer.com

for free Cisco rack access.

CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP, CCIE R&S (Written), Net+, MCP, NCTS

 

[NettableWalker]

Here's a question i had a couple of times:

If you start troubleshooting with CDP does that count as bottom-up or divide and conquer?

I'll rebook the exam today and take it again next week. I think it will be ok next time.

It is encouraging reading these forums to know that the occasional double-take exam is not unusual and a sign of your great stupidity

MCP,CCA,CCNA, Net+, Half CCNP...

 

[Cluebird]

I don't know of anyone who hasn't blown at least one Cisco exam myself included. I was talking with a couple of CCIEs in June and they had failed the current CCIE R&S a couple of times each while they were trying to recert. Don't tie your ego to a Cisco exam.

Troubleshooting with CDP is a bottom-up approach. The first place divide-and-conquer applies is with layer 3 tools for the test. CDP is a Layer 2 tool.

 

[techkiwi]

I would have thought that CDP was divide-and-conquer, as it's layer 2. Surely you have to start at layer 1 for it to be bottom-up?

 

[helpdeskdan]

Depends where the bottom is. Using the TCP model instead of OSI, CDP is at the bottom.

 

[Cluebird]

CDP lets you verify L1 is working so it starts at L1. If there is a problem at L1, CDP won't work. CDP can detect speed/duplex errors, encapuslation problems (not all but if the media can't carry a SNAP frame and it should be able to then that identifies L1 encapsulation issues), most cabling problems including unidirectional links, incorrectly attached cables in topology with directly attached neighbors (cdp discovery), trunking issues (if native vlan is misconfigured), and others. CDP can also help with basic L3 stuff, too. However, divide and conquer doesn't begin until you start with L3 tools and work up or down in OSI for the test.

HTH

 

[helpdeskdan]

gwildfire -

That's it, huh? That's the trick to passing the CIT? Thanks for the tip. I'll start drinking coffee tomorrow.

 

[gwildfire]

hahah I never said the study was easy, the exam is is you prepare!
Dont worry its not to bad your only going over stuff you have already done

Visit

http://www.Cisco-Engineer.com

for free Cisco rack access.

CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP, CCIE R&S (Written), Net+, MCP, NCTS

 

[helpdeskdan]

Dang! I thought the secret was coffee! ;-) Thanks gwildfire & everybody else for your comments.

 

[NettableWalker]

Ok, passed it finally!!

After a disastrous second failure last week, i finally got the CIT with 890 today.

I still say it's a tough exam as you need to be very sharp on the whole syllabus.

Now only one to go. BSCI. Wish me luck.

MCP,CCA,CCNA, Net+, Half CCNP...

 

[helpdeskdan]

Good job! Have mine Sept. 4. Studying for it right now - books everywhere, not sure where to start. Any pointers? (Not to imply that others haven't already given good advice)

The BSCI is a tough one - I used Cisco's book the most. Sometimes it seems to go into painfull detail and you think, "There is no way they will ask you about the precidence of these BGP attibutes on the test." Don't be so sure.

Be SURE to download the eratta - lots of mistakes in that book. I had made a list of mistakes I found that weren't on the eratta, but I seem to have lost it. I'll post them if I ever find them.