Exam Profile: ICND2 200-101
- Exam Details / Trouble Spots
- Preparation Hints / Recommended Study Resources
- Exam Objectives / Where to Go from Here
The Cisco ICND2 200-101 exam has a specific role to play in the hierarchy of Cisco certifications. Cisco gives us two options to attain the CCNA Routing and Switching certification: a one-exam path and a two-exam path. In the two exam path, the ICND2 200-101 exam serves as the second exam in the two exam path, as shown this figure.
The ICND2 200-101 takes the discussions of the most fundamental routing and switching concepts, as required for the ICND1 100-101 exam, and takes them a deeper level. ICND2 introduces new topics as well, including Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP), First Hop Redundancy Protocols (FHRPs), Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), Frame Relay, and several network management topics. More importantly, ICND2 raises the bar on the skill levels requiring candidates to be ready to troubleshoot problems on a variety of networking topics.
Exam Details
- Number of Questions: 50-60
- Types of Questions: Multiple Choice (single and multiple answer), drag-and-drop, Sim, Simlet, Testlet (see an exam tutorial here)
- Passing Score: varies, but it is around 800-850 out of 1000
- Time Limit: 75 minutes
- How to Register: vue.com
Trouble Spots
The ICND2 200-101 exam creates several challenges based on how it builds on the base knowledge and skills required from the predecessor exam, ICND1 100-101. Almost every topic in the ICND2 exam takes an ICND1 exam topic, adds some new concepts and configuration, plus requires that you be ready to troubleshoot based on what you learned in for both the ICND1 and ICND2 exams. For example:
- ICND1 covers basic OSPF concepts and configuration. ICND2 adds deeper concepts and configuration, and lists seven specific OSPF problem areas about which you need to be ready to troubleshoot problems (neighbors, tiers, areas, interface MTU), network types, neighbor states, topology database)
- ICND1 introduces VLANs and VLAN trunks. ICND2 introduces Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which creates a tree-like conceptual structure for each VLAN over those VLAN trunks. ICND2 then requires a higher skill than ICND1 on those core VLAN and trunking topics from back in ICND1, requiring troubleshooting of both STP and interVLAN routing.
Most people who take this ICND2 200-101 exam have taken only one other exam: ICND1 100-101. The ICND1 exam, based on its exam topics, has a higher concentration of conceptual topics, whereas this ICND2 200-101 exam has many more topics listed as “configure and verify.” So another trouble spot is that you need plenty of practice on the CLI of routers and switches to be ready to do well on this ICND2 exam.