My First Certification

Hi dudes,

This is my first blog. Eventhough i am not so good at narrating, i tried my level best. Post ur comments please to improvise my future blogs.

It was Feb 28, 2009. It was my first certification exam. It was real tough to sleep the night before.

But I got up early in the morning(actually i didn't sleep). I had to catch the college bus that takes me from the IIIT campus to the urban part of Allahabad as the IIIT campus is far away from the heart of Allahabad. Here i have to say one word about my friend Praveen kumar Chirumamilla. He is the one who took care of me in IIIT. I am really thankful to him. Thank you ra mama.

I went to the examination centre of Pearson VUE in Allahabad @ 10.00 a.m sharp. First time punctual in my life. The centre was actually a college of Uptech educational consultancy. There was a madam, who sat in her cabin, sketching the title of the institute on a paper. She is little good-looking. When you see a girl, you always want to make yourself look good by speaking english. So i started the conversion in english. She too started giving reply in english. I asked her for the examination procedure. She gave me a form to fill.

I asked her, "What is the ransom i have to pay?".

She said, "13000/- ONLY".

I felt, " Is 13000/-, an "only" amount?. May be she is rich!!!".

I said " I will be right back in an hour".

I ran to an ATM nearby to check whether the amount is deposited my dad or not. Luckily the amount is deposited. I withdrew the money from my account. Then i returned back to the centre to pay the money at the counter. There is long queue @ counter. Students are paying the fees. They are making fun of the person at the counter.

A student said, " Aaj 1000/- laaya hoon"

The person said, " ye kaun sa installment hai beta?"

A student said, " woh tho aapko hi dekhe batana hoga. "

It nearly took an hour to clear the queue. Atlast, I was ready with the form and fee receipt. I went to the madam for the time slot.

She said, " When do u want the time slot for exam?".

I said, " Madam, i want to write the exam today itself"

She didn't say anything. She just shouted, "pagal ho gaya kya ya dimag karab ho gaya. Aaj kaise milega".

I was shocked by her slang. I started convincing her. At last she was convinced for giving that day's time slot. By 12 o'clock, the procedure is over. I was given the slot for exam @ 2 p.m. I got 2 hours to prepare myself for exam. I brought the master guide for my exam - study guide by Todd lammale. I started preparing for the exam in the waiting room. There were many girls in the waiting room for their classes. "Jahan pe ladkiya honge, waha pe padayi nahi hoga"(don't take it seriously, just for fun). I was actually not able to concentrate on my exam. So i went outside for my meal. I had Dosa and sugarcane juice. Even though it was not enough, it was quite enough to take the exam. I again got back to the centre for attending the exam.

As soon as i entered the centre, she was waiting for me.

She said,"It's time.Follow me".

I quietly followed her. She took me into a room with a highly sophisticated equipment. Then she told me to wait for a while. Later she asked me to sign on an e-notepad (never seen it before). Then she took my photo with a webcam. The things really gave me a splendid feel of the exam. Afterwards she asked me to sign again on a paper. At last, the procedure is over. She said that you can proceed to examination cabin. The cabin is just like a cabin in a netcafe. The computer is of HCL made. There is pin-drop silence in the room. I placed myself in front of the computer. There was a good demonstration of the exam that i was going to undertake. According to the demo, there will be extra questions that i have to undertake for survey purposes and there will be no extra marks for answering these questions. I was quite confused. Why should i answer such questions? But they said that they are acutally providing extra time for these questions.Then it's K.

Now i started the exam. By seeing the first question, there was a wave of panic in my body.It was a scenario question, actually a simlet. According to my seniors, the total paper contains questions from dumps (practice papers from p4s). I went to the exam on their word of trust. By first question, i felt," pehle hi aisa hai tho, bakhi ka kya hoga". I took 15 min to make that question. The next question was a drag and drop question. The 2nd question is not so difficult. Guess what! This question too wasn't from dumps. Its the third question that came from dumps. Oh god! atleast one question! Thanks for this!

It was the fourth question that really caught me. I mistakenly pressed the next button twice and it asked me for some confirmation. I said "yes". Here i have to mention the real twist. In this exam, we can't get back to the question once we pass that question. Then i came to realise that the fourth question i passed can't be retrieved. Then i felt, " What the f**k???". Pardon my language. But this is the real moment to express the anger on yourself. I felt very bad for wasting my parents' money for such an unsuccessful attempt. My confidence level went down to zero or maybe negative. As the fourth question was a scenario question, i just lost a considerable percentage. I calmed down myself so that i can complete the exam. Until the 10th question, there was not even a single question from the dumps. I have done all the questions on my own. Confidence tending to -(infinity).

Huh! Already one hour is over. Only 10 questions of 43 were completed. Now i realized my position. I recalled all my courage and confidence. I completed the question paper 15 minutes before the scheduled time. In my heart, there were almost no hopes for a passing score. But i dared to see the score card. It mentioned as follows

Congratulations! Your Score is 888.

You passed the exam conducted by the CISCO. Ask the co-ordinator for further procedures.

OH SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY! i forgot to say the examination name i was attending. It was CCNA - Cisco Certified Network Associate. And The mandatory passing score should be 825/1000. With the result in front of me, i was really not able to stand on the earth. I felt like heaven. I was really happy. If there was somebody with me at that time, i would have given him/her a party in any restaurant, he/she desires. But it was your bad luck. U missed the chance. Nobody was there for me except Hanuman Ji. He is the one who saved the day for me. JAI HANUMAN! Whatever it is, at the end of the day i became a CCNA.

PS: The story is little bit modified for better narration.