- [Instructor] One of the most important decisions
in creating your study plan
can be choosing the right practice test.
A good practice test should be able
to measure your knowledge level by objective.
You use this information to adjust your study plan
to focus on the areas
where you need to strengthen your knowledge.
Choosing the right practice test can be overwhelming.
Let me save you some time and tell you what to look for
when evaluating a practice test.
Here are some basic questions to keep in mind.
Do the questions reflect the exam topics?
What have people you know recommended?
Is it easy to navigate?
How many questions are in the test bank?
And does it provide explanations?
This is the practice test
that comes with Wendell Odom's Official
200-301 CCNA Certification Guide.
You have your choice of four predefined exams
that they've created for you.
You can choose one of them or you can choose all of them
just by checking and unchecking the boxes here.
If you want to focus on a particular objective,
you can do that here at the bottom.
Just uncheck the Click here to toggle on/off all objectives,
and choose one or more objectives that you want to focus on.
You can also choose the amount of time
that you want to spend on this exam.
You want to be sure that you're on Study Mode
when you're creating your own exam,
because it's Study Mode
that allows you to create all of these options.
When you're ready to start your exam,
you just go to the bottom and you click on Start.
As you can see here, you have lots of other options
where you can randomize questions, randomize answers,
you can be as detailed as you want
when creating your own exam.
The second mode is the Practice Exam.
In this mode, the practice test
will choose the questions for you.
In most cases you'll have 102 questions.
You cannot click on the answer button to see the answer
while you're taking the test,
you'll have to wait until the test is over,
and it does give you 120 minutes to complete the test.
The biggest advantage to this test,
is that it's CISCO sanctioned,
you have a large number of questions in the test bank
and they cover all exam topics and more,
and you are given explanations for each answer.
Some of the disadvantages include,
some of the topics are covered in too much detail,
which eats up a lot of your time unnecessarily.
You can find yourself lost in a rabbit hole very easily.
The biggest disadvantage I see, is questions with exhibits.
They're difficult to manipulate,
and let me just make one thing extremely clear here.
On the real certification exam, there are no exhibits.
I'm going to give you an example
of exactly what I'm talking about.
I can just put in the question ID in this blank,
scroll down and click on Start.
And you're looking at the type of question
that I'm talking about.
As you can see, you have the actual question,
you have a diagram, and you have your answers.
In addition to that,
you're required to click on the Exhibit button,
because here's more information you need
in order to answer the question correctly.
So as you can see, there's a lot of detail in the question,
a lot of detail in the diagram,
a lot of detail in the answers,
and a lot of detail in the exhibit.
I find it very difficult
to go back and forth between all of these options,
to answer the question correctly,
and most of all, this is not the way
you will see a test question,
when you're taking the real CISCO Certification Exam.
How2Pass has been my favorite
practice test program for years.
Although it is not CISCO sanctioned,
it acts like the real exam.
Before I go into the testing area,
I'd like to show you other options
that How2Pass provides for you.
One, they give you exam tips, and an exam forum,
where you can share thoughts with other users,
regarding questions you may have,
or you can help other users with questions they may have.
If you look at the bottom of the screen,
they discuss ways to get full benefit of their product.
Let's go in and look at a real test.
These are the exam topics
exactly the way CISCO has them on their website.
How2Pass also keeps up with current exam topics
as they come out.
I'm going to go ahead and click on network fundamentals,
scroll down and click on take test now.
I'm going to zoom in on the question and the answers,
and you can see, here's your question with the answers.
I click Next,
and you'll see that the questions come one after the other,
just like the real exam.
However, don't forget,
on the real exam you cannot go to a previous question.
There are two ways that you can take an exam on How2Pass.
We were just able to choose an objective,
and we could choose the answers and see the explanation.
I also have my option of taking test number 9 here.
Random Test from all exam topics.
You'll notice that I cannot change
the total number of questions.
If I click on All,
it says, please select a numeric value.
So in other words, this is like the other exam we looked at,
where you're going to have 100 questions,
just like the real certification exam.
When you click on take test now,
notice the answer button is grayed out,
as well as the previous question,
so this is identical to the way your real exam will look.
Word of mouth is the best resource
for finding a good practice test
that will prepare you for your exam.
A lot of practice tests let you demo
a few of their questions,
and it's a good idea to do just that.