A Little help or Advise CCNA Exam

aceshigh

Hi Everyone,

I am new to the forum. I have had a good read through the CCNA Study Guide. I have a few questions
I hope someone can shed some light on for me.

I am studying using someone online training videos (Instructor is confusing).
The official Cert guides ICND 1 + 2 and have access to a fair few practice exams.
I have bought a lab also. I am ready to go you would be thinking.

3 Chapters into ICND1, 1 into ICND2 I come to review what I have been doing and feel completely overwhelmed by what I think I should know. Getting everything wrong, I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

I work as a technician but we don't use cisco gear. I wouldn't consider myself useless.

Does anyone have any tips to why I am feeling so completely overwhelmed by the information and how to approach all of this better than I have. Do I read to retain straight away for the exam or do I approach in a way to understand and enjoy then read again.

Exams in September so I am pretty worried about this.

Kris

OfWolfAndMan

Theory and hands-on are two different things (At least a lot of people I know have their own methods when troubleshooting and forget the fundamentals). Maybe you don't have experience in certain technologies (Such as Frame Relay or NAT).

aceshigh

I would completely agree, they are different. I would like a method to approaching the mountain of information that is... CCNA.
*Dramatic Music*

OfWolfAndMan

Depends on what kind of learner you are (visual, auditory, or kinsithetic). Take notes, watch tutorial videos (If you don't have CBT nuggets, youtube has plenty for nearly all cisco tracks. Take that practice exam you were talking about. Lastly, and one of the most importantly, DO LABS. It doesn't matter if it's Cisco Packet Tracer, GNS3, or physical equipment. Make sure you know your CCNA commands. If you want some labs, look below:

Free CCNA Workbook | CCNA Labs, Practice Exams and More!

Good luck!
*More dramatic music*

stryder144

A good source of information may be Chris Bryant's Udemy CCNA course. He is clear and not too confusing and he has authored a book or two that generally matches up. Paul Browning also produces a systematic collection of books and videos called CCNA in 60 Days. Give them a look and see if any of those interest you.

Jon_Cisco

I started collecting information on Cisco in August of last year. I was scheduled to start Netacademy classes at my Community College in September and just wanted to get started. Boy is it overwhelming at the start. I visited 100s of web sites downloaded 100s of labs ....

Then I found Tech Exams started to really focus.

My suggestion to people now is pick one or two sources and read/watch them first. This should give you an idea of what you need to learn even if you didn't absorb much of it. Then lab it up and read it or another source again. Slower this time trying to understand it all.

When labbing spend some time using the ? to see the options that are available on every command. Learn your shortcuts but use the tab key to see it spelled out as you are learning. I like to type everything but the last letter then use tab to auto fill and ? to see what options are next. Over time it will be easy to navigate the command line and the trick is knowing where to navigate to.

So my advice is don't stress about the peak just start to follow the path.

Good Luck!

gcr

Hi Kris,

I just finished with ICND1 and passed the test last week. So here is my two cents...

Given that you aren't working with Cisco gear at your current job, and since the new CCNA is harder than the previous one, I would suggest you focus on ICND1 first. ICND1 alone covers lot of different topics that require time and practice to fully understand. ICND2 repeats some of the topics from ICND1 but digs way deeper into them so it's important to build a solid foundations on those topics early on. Also, by trying to put so much new and complex information in your brain all at once, you'll burn out and end up not enjoying your CCNA journey. If I was in your shoes I would reschedule the test rather than stressing out trying to rush yourself.

Here's the approach I took for the 29 chapters that compose ICND1:

1_ I watched video tutorials regarding the chapter.
2_ I read the Study Guide material for that same chapter.
3_ I then took the practice test for that chapter. If I got all my answers right, I moved to the next chapter. Otherwise I re-watched the video tutorial and reviewed the part of the chapter from the Study Guide related to the question I did wrong.
4_ If configurations or commands were part of that particular chapter, I practiced on the lab all the commands and configurations a couple of times.
(I recommend you using the commands "erase nvram:" or "erase startup-config" to wipe out the current configuration and then "reload" to reboot the switch/router so you can start your configurations again from scratch and really cement those commands in your brain)

After completing each one of the 7 parts from ICND1, I took a test on the whole part and if my score was over 800 I moved on to the next part. Otherwise, I reviewed the topics related to the questions I failed till I understood them well.

I used the tests that come with Wendell's book. You can choose the chapters you want the test to include, so it's fairly easy to customize each test. Also, you can take the test in study-mode, so you can choose to view the answers with explanations for each question.

Hope I could be of help.

Good luck and keep pushing!!

aceshigh

You guys are awesome.

I am currently studying as I type. (Before Game of Thrones) I have seems a few of Chris Bryants videos and he does seem to be very clear.
I might give his videos a shot. Whist also reading.

Jon, thank you for your advise makes perfect sense.

Kris

mikeybinec

aceshigh wrote: »

You guys are awesome.

I am currently studying as I type. (Before Game of Thrones) I have seems a few of Chris Bryants videos and he does seem to be very clear.
I might give his videos a shot. Whist also reading.

Jon, thank you for your advise makes perfect sense.

Kris

Do labs and make use of the show commands i.e. sh ip os int. Strongly recommend a lab, not just packet tracer

aceshigh

I have these

2 X 2610XM 96/32
1 X WS-C2950-24
1 X C2501

Will that be enough to play with? I have been using GNS which seems a little flakey.

Kris

mikeybinec

i'd add two more switches..I'm buying 3 2960s this week from whoever has them..Get a patch panel too!!!

The patch panel for mine is at the top but it works for me. I put a serial card in two of my computers so I have extra comm ports for tera term