Remembering all the details / acronyms...

The_Expert

Hello everyone!

I'm currently studying for the ICND2 and was wondering how folks here remember all the details + acronyms related to the different technologies?

There is so much stuff to remember and many acronyms / technologies are improvements of one another... Things get overwhelming at times.

So let's hear it! What are some good retention strategies when it comes to learning about Cisco?

JoJoCal19

While I haven't yet started on CCNA/Security studies, I can say for some others that have a lot of information like you speak of, what works for me is just going over all of the material multiple times, writing out tables and doing memorization (for example I did that with common ports and services, nmap switches, etc). And last but probably most important, is using the info, for example practicing entering the commands in a CLI.

fredrikjj

Mnemonics are very powerful for acronyms. Like creating a sentence where the words beginning with each letter,etc. Read more: Mnemonic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It makes it pretty easy to remember things you shouldn't be able to remember, like the entire BGP path selection process, or whatever you happen to be interested in.

Jon_Cisco

I gave up after a while and just started using the commands in packet tracer. Worked way better them memorizing them.

However I used mnemonic a lot even if it was only while I first read something. Sometimes just thinking one up is enough to get your brain to make the connection, also if you can make a term into an image. iImages are very helpful for the brain to process.

Disgruntled3lf

I'm not sure how many you have to memorize but if it's a small <50 list I'd make a table and write it out until you can do it from memory. Always in the same order. Then write the table about 10 times just before you go into the exam. Then first thing when you get the go command draw that table. Think of this like dumping a file from RAM to the HDD. Having it like that will make you feel so much more comfortable that I bet it helps you answer unrelated questions better. If it's a longer list I'd suggest the loci memory technique or something like SuperMemo or Mnemosyne. I use SuperMemo everyday, I've used it to study all my exams to date and I review it's suggestions every morning. Keeps me sharp.

Dieg0M

Just keep reading and labbing. You will get used to the acronyms as there's not that many of them for CCNA/CCNP R&S level. One thing you wont be able to do is to memorize all the commands. Remember all the core technologies commands and use the ? and DOC-CD for the rest.

DoubleNNs

Those acronyms stand for for something. Find out the long human readable version of the acronyms, and understand the tech behind the concept and/or it's use.
Note cards and labbing also help tremendously in speeding up the process.