Cisco DevNet Tips.
We Cisco offer 4 levels of this certification but here I focus on the DevNet Associate. The exam I passed was the 200-901 DEVASC the latest exam as of November 2022. This can change though so please check on the Cisco website which is the latest if you plan to take this. This post is aimed at people wanting to pass the exam and achieve this certification. I’ve taken this exam three times now! It’s a long story, and I’ve studied for over 200 hours, so I have a pretty good insight into passing this exam. Here I share some core topics, study methods, and exam tips that I hope will help you achieve this certification.
This exam is tough! You have 104 questions which are a combination of multiple choice and drag and drop with 120 minutes to complete them which leads me nicely onto the first tip. Time management.
Time Management
The time on this exam is super tight, 104 questions with 120 minutes means you have around 85 seconds per question. A lot of the questions are verbose and even in the multiple-choice answers could be four snippets of python code around 20+ lines each. The time it takes to even read these questions doesn’t give you much thinking time. In the exam you need to keep an eye on the clock, so you don’t fall into any traps. I would say the main points here are:
Take advantage of the short questions.
These are questions that are short and have 1 obvious answer, you need to know your stuff of course but you already do, or you wouldn't be taking the exam. Trust your gut on these or eliminate the wrong ones but do this quickly! These questions we are trying bank as much time for those harder questions.
An example:
In the test-driven development model, what is changed after a test fails?
A. schedule
B. project requirements
C. code
D. test
ANSWER: C
Dedicate more time to drag and drop questions.
These questions require a little more processing so dedicate a little more time to these. Most of them are python scripts which will be either getting or sending data to an API. These questions you need to know the Request module and Python data types like the back of your hand because Cisco try to trick you here on the characters of the options. Here is an example:
Which of the two options below completes this API request?
response = requests.get(url, headers= .json()
A “headers”
B “headers)”
ANSWER: B
The reason the answer is B is this has the closing bracket of the method call. Sneaky I know but you need to be aware of this and make sure you don’t fall victim. If you have spent enough time doing labs this will feel easy to you by the time of the exam, I think this is the reason Cisco, give these answers the way they do. They know you will have been in labs coding these requests for months, so they are looking to trip you up and test how well are you paying attention.
Move on!
You need to keep an eye on the clock the whole time of the exam and pace yourself in each question. If it’s taking you too long, make an educated guess on the time you have spent diagnosing the answers so far and move one! The question you are giving 5 marks worth of time to is probably only worth 1 and this can be fatal especially as you get to the end of the exam.
Practice Exams
Practice exams are great! They train your brain to recognise how the questions are asked and information they give you to answer them. They also give you an insight into what topics you are weakest so you can direct your efforts. I recommend MeasureUps, I think Cisco may have partnered with them to provide very realistic practice exams.
Window Game
I realised that when I was taking practice exams, I got questions on things I hadn’t seen in all the materials I used to study. They were single pieces of information things I only need for exam day things I didn’t need to learn nor had the time to as the exam is in a week, I just need this in my short-term memory. Hence the birth of the The Window Game.
After a practice exam near the exam, I invented the Window Game (something similar probably already exists) designed to getting these single pieces of information into my short-term memory. An example question that I got in a practice exam that I never saw in the materials was ‘What are the DNA Centre IPAM providers?’; the answers are Infoblox and Bluecat. NEVER did I see this in my studies except for this question but what if this comes up in the exam I thought? I need a way to store this fact away before the exam!
How to play:
Add a single fact to a sticky note, then place all your sticky notes in the top left section of the window I recommend no more than 10. Then stand in front of the window and read over your notes.
Turn around and try to say out loud as many of the facts as you just read, the ones that you remembered move to the next section of the window. The remaining facts repeat the process, read them again then turn around and say out loud. Repeat this until you have all facts in the next section of the window.
Now do it again! Read the facts, turn around and say out loud as many as you can moving the ones you got into the next section moving clockwise around the window. The aim here is that after a few attempts you will be able to turn around and say all of the facts. At this point see how many times you can loop the window moving all facts into the next section in one turn around and make a game of it.
You will soon commit these things to your memory and say all of them out loud without the need for your window.
Window Game
Cheat Sheet
This again is about committing things to memory but the cheat sheet if different in the information we want to put on here. The window game is about those single pieces of information that we only need to know on exam day in case we are tested on. Here are concepts and core topics we know we will be tested on. The cheat sheet I treated similarly to the window game that I would write this out every night and after a few times I could write this without looking.
When you get in the exam make writing this out the first thing you do. You can now dump that from your mind and focus on answering the questions but if you need to refer to it there it is!
My cheat sheet
Core Topics in Exam
The last time I took the exam questions on the below came up so often they made up so much of the exam. Make sure you know these really well especially Python and REST API, so many questions are based around interacting with APIs using Python.
REST API
Python
Git
Revert
Reset
YANG and NETCONF