Cisco Technician Resources

Steps to Complete Course

There are two sections to the Cisco Technician program.  Cisco indicates that each section should take you about 75 hours to complete.  We give you 90 hours.  The first section is called Discovery 1 Networking for Home and Small Businesses and the second part is called Discovery 2 Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or ISP.  To save time we simply refer to them as D1 and D2.  For both sections please complete the following steps:

1. Read the chapter.
2. Take end of chapter quiz.
3. Take the Chapter Exams
1. All chapter exams must be activated by the instructor.
2. All chapter exams must be taken in the lab.
3. Login Window – Login Window refers to the time frame in which you can login to take a chapter exam.  For example, if the login window was from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm and you had 3 hours to complete the exam, and you logged in at 2:30 you would still have 3 hours from your login time to finish the exam.  However, if something went wrong and you had to reboot or logout and back in, you would be unable to since the login window time has expired.
4. Incomplete Exams -Starting an exam and not completing it requires an instructor to manually re-enable the exam. This may take time.  Please do not attempt an exam until you are sure you are ready for it and have ample time to complete it.  When asking your instructor to enable this exam again YOU MUST TELL YOUR INSTRUCTOR THAT YOU ARE ASKING FOR AN INCOMPLETE EXAM TO BE REACTIVATED.  And again please avoid this as much as possible.
5. Exams may be taken 3 times.  The last exam score is recorded, NOT THE HIGHEST.
6. 85% is the minimum considered for passing a chapter exam.
7. Exam questions and answers can be reviewed by the student under the GRADEBOOK section on the Cisco Academy page.  Ask your instructor to show you how.
4. Packet Tracer Practice Skills Based Assessment (PT Practice SBA) – When all chapter exams have been passed at 85% or better, ask your instructor to activate the PT Practice SBA.  This must be taken in the lab and may be taken up to 10 times.  You have up to 3 hours to complete the simulation.
5. Practice Final Exam – When you have passed the PT Practice SBA ask your instructor to activate the practice final.  This must be taken in the lab and may be taken up to 5 times.
6. Final Exam – When you have passed the Practice Final Exam ask your instructor to activate the Final Exam.  You need to get  75% or better on the first attempt to get the 58%discount on the industry certification exam costs.

Program Resources

• The training curriculum can be accessed in one of two ways. Through your Cisco Academy Connection Homepage.  You can always find a shortcut to that link in the QUICK LINKS. Inside the lab you can use the links below. These links are only accessible from INSIDE the lab. They are local only and do not require logging in.  You must still log in to the Cisco Academy homepage to take exams.

Launch Networking for Home and Small Businesses

Launch Working at a Small-to-Medium Business or ISP

• Additional Files (PowerPoints, Worksheets, Course Erratta, etc) can be found and copied from the lab server \\server\students\program resources\cisco

• Discovery Server – Some of the labs make use of a server to test and troubleshoot ports, protocols and services.  It is called the Discovery Server.  The Discovery Server and optional Discovery PC are a couple of virtual machines running on the Instructor’s PC.  Please ask your instructor to turn them on when you need them.  Accounts, passwords and topology can be found in \\server\students\program resources\cisco\discovery server.pdf

 The Console Access Server

Normally you used a console cable to access the Cisco equipment.

Login to the Digi Console Access Server (only works inside the lab)