Finished David Bombal's CCNA course? Here's how to find out if you're exam-ready
David Bombal's CCNA material is among the most hands-on you can find - Packet Tracer, GNS3 and EVE-NG labs where you actually build and break the topology rather than watch someone describe it. That is the best possible way to learn networking. It is not the same skill as sitting a 120-minute multiple-choice and drag-and-drop exam. FigigExams gives you a free, full-length CCNA 200-301 practice exam that pairs with the labs, then ranks your domains by how many marks each one is actually costing you. No credit card.
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A full-length 200-301 practice exam with an Explanation and an Exam Tip on every question, plus a domain board ranked by weighted shortfall. Create an account on the next screen, the code auto-applies.
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In This Guide
What lab-heavy courses teach, and what they leave to you
Configuration and exam performance are different skills, and CCNA 200-301 tests the second one. In a lab you have as long as you like, you can re-read a command reference, and a wrong answer shows up immediately as a link that will not come up. In the exam you get roughly 75 to 90 minutes of questions with no feedback, no device to check against, and a clock.
Bombal's courses are unusually good at the part most video courses skip - actually touching the CLI. What no lab can simulate is the recognition-under-pressure format: multiple-choice items where three options are plausible, drag-and-drop items that want the exact ordering, and scenario questions that ask what you would check first. Candidates who can configure OSPF from memory still lose marks on "which of these four statements about OSPF LSA types is correct", because building it and describing it are different recalls.
That is the normal division of labour: labs teach, practice exams pressure-test. The trap is finishing the lab series, feeling genuinely competent - because you are - and never once sitting a full timed paper before the real one.
The two domains a lab-trained CCNA candidate usually walks in cold on
Cisco's 200-301 v1.1 blueprint has six domains. Lab work covers four of them well. Two it barely touches:
| Domain | Weight | Covered by lab work? |
|---|---|---|
| Network Fundamentals | 20% | Partly - the theory half (cabling, TCP/UDP, wireless principles) is reading, not configuration |
| Network Access | 20% | Yes - VLANs, trunking and STP are lab-native |
| IP Connectivity | 25% | Yes - routing is the heart of most lab series |
| IP Services | 10% | Partly - NTP, SNMP and syslog are configured once and forgotten |
| Security Fundamentals | 15% | Rarely - much of it is concepts, policy and wireless security, not CLI |
| Automation and Programmability | 10% | Rarely - REST, JSON and controller-based architecture are read about, not built |
That is 25% of the exam sitting in two domains that a purely lab-based route under-serves. Bombal's separate Python and network-automation material helps a great deal with the second one if you have worked through it - but it is a different course from the CCNA labs, and plenty of candidates do the labs and skip it.
Free guides for both gaps: attack types and the CCNA study guide hub, plus the full weighted list on CCNA exam topics.
Where CCNA candidates actually lose marks
Across 4,188 domain-tagged CCNA 200-301 practice answers from 17 candidates, accuracy was strikingly flat: just 4.6 percentage points separated the best domain from the worst. Candidates were not failing one topic and acing the rest - they were roughly equally shaky everywhere, which means Cisco's domain weights decide entirely where the marks go.
The costliest domain was IP Connectivity: at 25% of the exam and 60.0% accuracy it put 10.0 points of the real paper at risk. The lowest-scoring domain was Security Fundamentals at 55.4% - but at 15% weight it only cost 6.7 points. Full per-domain tables and method →
The practical consequence for a lab-trained candidate: do not let a strong routing result convince you that IP Connectivity is finished. It is a quarter of the exam, so it stays the most expensive domain on the paper even when it is one of your better ones. A 60% there costs you more than a 55% in Security Fundamentals.
What you get back from a FigigExams CCNA paper
A percentage tells you where you stand. It does not tell you what to do next. Every FigigExams CCNA paper produces two things beyond the score:
- A weighted domain board. Every domain you answered, ranked by weighted shortfall - the blueprint weight multiplied by your miss rate - so the domain at the top is the one costing you the most marks, not merely the one you scored lowest in. On the CCNA that usually reorders the board - the domain you scored lowest in is often third or fourth on the list of what to fix.
- An Exam Tips block on every single question. Each item ships an Explanation that teaches the question and a separate Exam Tips block - the memorize-this table or rule for the concept. It is the part candidates pull up the night before, and it is in the free exam too.
The arithmetic behind the board is written out in full on the study path method page - no black box, no proprietary "readiness score" you cannot check.
One free full-length paper, no credit card. If you want the rest of the bank afterwards it is $39 once for lifetime access to every practice exam in that certification, including papers we add later - not a subscription, nothing to cancel, and no auto-renewal. For comparison, Boson ExSim is $99 for a year that renews itself.
See which domain is really costing you
Take the free CCNA paper and read your own weighted domain board. The code auto-applies after sign-up.
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Where this sits in the certification path
CCNA is step one of the Cisco professional track
CCNA is the associate-level foundation; CCNP Enterprise is the professional tier above it, and its core exam is ENCOR 350-401. There is no formal prerequisite - you can sit ENCOR without holding CCNA - but the jump is real: ENCOR assumes routing and switching fluency and adds virtualization, network assurance, and a 15% automation and AI domain.
If you followed Bombal for CCNA, his automation and Python material maps directly onto ENCOR's domain 6.0. We have a companion page for that step: David Bombal CCNP ENCOR practice exam. One warning worth knowing before you buy any ENCOR course - wireless was removed from ENCOR in March 2026, so older course material teaches a section that is no longer on the exam.
Test your CCNA readiness after the labs - free
A full-length 200-301 practice exam with a weighted domain board. No credit card.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Are David Bombal's CCNA courses enough to pass the CCNA?
They are an excellent way to learn the material, and plenty of people pass after them. What lab-based courses leave to you is full, timed practice under exam conditions, plus the two domains labs barely touch - Security Fundamentals (15%) and Automation and Programmability (10%), which together are a quarter of the exam. Pairing the labs with full practice papers is the combination that works.
Do Packet Tracer labs prepare you for the actual CCNA exam format?
Partly. Labs build genuine configuration skill, which the exam does test through scenario and drag-and-drop items. What they cannot simulate is the format: roughly 75 to 90 questions in 120 minutes, no device to check against, no feedback, and multiple-choice items where three of four options are plausible. Building OSPF from memory and identifying a correct statement about OSPF LSA types are different recalls.
Is there a free CCNA practice exam?
Yes. FigigExams gives you a full-length CCNA 200-301 practice exam free with no credit card - the code CCNA-EXAM-FULL applies automatically after you create an account. Every question carries an Explanation and an Exam Tip, and you get a weighted domain board when you finish. The rest of the pack is one $39 purchase covering every CCNA paper for life.
Which CCNA domain should I study first after finishing a lab course?
Rank by weighted shortfall, not by your lowest score. Measured across 4,188 domain-tagged CCNA answers from 17 candidates in August 2026, IP Connectivity was the costliest domain at 10.0 points of the real exam at risk, despite not being the lowest-scoring one. For a lab-trained candidate specifically, check Security Fundamentals and Automation and Programmability first - they are the two domains lab work under-serves.
Should I wait for CCNA 200-301 v2.0?
Only if you are not ready before 2 February 2027. Cisco's v2.0 blueprint goes live 3 February 2027 and v1.1's last day is 2 February 2027, with no overlap window because the exam number does not change. If you can sit it in 2026, sit v1.1. If your timeline runs into 2027, study v2.0 - it drops to five domains and brings troubleshooting verbs back after five years.