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I too passed the CWNA.

I strongly recommend people spend more time than I did with the online assessment tests. The explanations are very well written and the score at the end lets you know what chapters to focus on.

I didn't do them until I thought I was ready for the test; that was a mistake. I missed out on a great tool.

Dan

Dan, congratulations and thanks for sharing that tidbit about the practice tests. Great advice!

They are amazing. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the Study Guides; I have hundreds of flash cards with obscure information on them. The practice tests (hopefully) tell us what the test writer thinks is important. And I find the explanations extremely coherent.

I can think of one question on the CWNA test I probably got right because I follow the QOTD here.

And thank you for the congratulations. I hope we can meet someday.

Dan

Congratulations Dan.

I agree with your assessment of the Practice exams. They can make all the difference. The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned.

A problem I have is that when there are too few practice exams, like with the current CWAP and the CWDP, I end up unintentionally memorizing the questions and the answers.

Kevin keeps promising that more practice tests are on the way, so I'm waiting for another practice CWDP exam before I go for that one.

I spent some time thinking about the practice exams last night. I realized a really important benefit.

On many "Choose n" questions I had n+1 answers that I liked. I would go back and forth deciding which one the exam author would prefer.

For example, take this question:

An HFS (Hot Fudge Sunday) contains what ingredients? (Choose 4)

_ Hot Fudge
_ Whipped Cream
_ Dog Poo
_ Toasted Chopped Peanuts
_ Ice Cream
_ Unicorn Tears
_ One Maraschino Cherry

Once I discarded the wildly wrong and the nonexistent, I was left with five reasonable answers. I had to figure out what the test author wanted.

Personally I think toasted peanuts complement the flavor of the sauce and provide a nice textural counterpoint, but if there was a picture somewhere of a sunday with a cherry I would choose that option. In at least one case I know that worked to my advantage (I got 100% on a section with a question I struggled over.)

For me the test was an exercise in meta-knowledge. Not finding the answers I liked, but finding the ones that the test author liked. The practice tests allow a window into the mind of the test author. That is invaluable.

Wlanman - Now how about an answer to my question about how I station knows to do Shared auth? You responded to the easy ones :-)

Dan

I passed last Friday thankfully on first attempt. Only about a 1/3 of the test is fact memorization. Most of it requires understanding multiple concepts per questions. Some things were much more indirect than expected and others more direct than I would expect. My study consisted of:

reading free materials on CWNP.com, watching N video, skimming study guide in advance of instructor class
Instructor lead class - Thanks Robert at Eight-O-Two!
Every Sybex flash card, chapter test review, practice test
A-D pool practice test on CWNP.com twice through
Read Sybex study guide front to back
Read included whitepapers
Sybex flash cards, chapter test review, practice tests again
A-D pools practice test on CWNP.com (C and D are best for test prep)
Youtube videos, wirelesslanpros.com, etc
I also happen to have been training on Fluke Airmagnet suite of wlan tools and certs at the same time and Keith Parsons 802.11n video from this is a 1 hour review of 60% of the CWNA from an easy everyday perspective. Most excellent.

I think I put in well over 120hours in one way or another over a month. A summary would be you must know how everything works or don't bother taking the test. For me this was skim info, cram info, relax and read the study guide and white papers, and then back to some cramming. I will say the second round of "cramming" really felt like review or reciting because it had all "stuck" in my mind. Until it feels stuck, don't take the test. Cramming for test purposes only works for things like the CCNA. This is an entirely different animal and far tougher in my experience. Which is great!

This was all on top of having several years experience with wireless and a strong wired networking background. You really have to have the tripod for wireless. Wireless, Networking, Experience

there is no such thing as too much info for wireless. use social networking and various sites to keep up and keep things "stuck". It's on to CWDP for me since that is the most direct for my job. Next year will be CWSP.

Well done, Harmonic! Congratulations, and thank you for sharing your prep!

I'm taking my again tomorrow as I failed with a 68 last year (ugh so close) and this time around I've paid more attention to the white papers and I have to say I'm more confident this time around because I have a better understanding of WHY something works in a particular scenario in addition to how it works in general.

I passed yesterday afternoon on my 2nd attempt. I spent 4 days taking the 4 separate online practice tests over and over again. Yes eventually I got to where I memorized some of the question/answer but it was good review. I set to give me the explanation after each questions, which probably helped me the most. In my opinion the practice exams are tougher than the actual exam.

Now on the the CWSP!

Well done AlexC! Congratulations on staying the course and being persistent!