Newbie - Sitting ICND1 on 2/21 - Missing anything?

Hey all,

Long time lurker - first time poster. I've been studying the past couple of months for the ICND1. I've been through the CBTNuggets ICND1 series (some of the videos multiple times). I have a pretty good sized home lab thanks to some help from some friends and ebay (2x 1721s, 2x 2950s, 1x 3560, 1x 2821).

I've labbed pretty extensively using mostly my own made up material. I'd typically go through a "nugget" and rebuild the setup in my home lab. I've setup NAT, OSPF, DHCP, port security, trunking, vlans, etc. multiple times in my lab environment.

I am using Boson ExSim for test prep. I tried to not memorize the questions by spacing out the tests. I took test 1 and 2 about 3 times over the past month. I just took test 3 this weekend. I did an all-in exam (every single question/sim) and scored 90%.

I am going to study hard over the next week and am going to hit the areas I think I'm weak on, but I'm wondering if anyone else has used a similar study technique or if I am missing a major hole somewhere in my studies? I've seen some labs on here that I'm going to try and tackle this week. Is there a ground up lab that hits most every topic out there?

I'm pretty nervous about this test. I have my MCSE but from what I've read the M$ exams are a lot easier than the Cisco ones.

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H3||scr3am

Man, to think that you're this prepared, and I'm still reading books, writing notes, and planning to take it before the month is over :S I have cisco packet tracer student edition that I'll be using to lab with too, but still. I'm interested in how others will answer your preparedness. I'm hoping to get through WGU without needing to buy physical lab equipment myself. Based on what you've said if I were you, I'd feel prepared for the CCENT exam.

mikeybinec

show commands..Last time I gave an example a Mod deleted it..

NetworkNewb

Just make sure you know all the topics that are covered.

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-17401

best of luck.

Codeman6669

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Just make sure you know all the topics that are covered.

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-17401

best of luck.

The exam topics cover a much broader range then the test does. Of course you should know the topics, but it really focus on a few major aspects of it more then the other.

***Subnetting
***OSPF (Know whats needed to form adjacency and what show commands to use to find that info)
Show COmmand
Port Security
OSI
Switching Concepts/ Frame Filtering
NAT (I only had i think 1 question on the test for this)
UNderstand what devices create collision domains and seperate broadcast domains (should be an easy one)

zaaa

Thanks all for the responses. I will post back in this thread the news (good or bad) Saturday night!

I figure worse case if I fail I'll have a good idea of what the exam is like.

castagnolac

Best of luck! I'm sitting for ICND1 on 2/26.

H3||scr3am

best of luck on this tomorrow, let us know how it goes. I've booked mine for the 26th as well

BerkshireHerd

Subnetting Subnetting Subnetting ! I think I would have gotten a hogh enough score just by now subnetting inside and out. I used it in some form or another to answer a LOT of questions.

mikeybinec

Be able to subnet in less than 15-25 seconds.. You'll save that extra time allocated so you can do several show commands in figuring out a scenario

Here in SoCal, the monitor sizes at the exam room are like 13".. really sucks Hope you get a larger screen

highschooltech

mikeybinec wrote: »

Be able to subnet in less than 15-25 seconds.. You'll save that extra time allocated so you can do several show commands in figuring out a scenario

Great tip! Subnetting needs to be second nature, practically innate!

Good luck with the exam, I hope to schedule mine soon.

zaaa

Update: I passed.

My study materials:
- CBTNuggets
- Boson ExSim
- Physical lab (made up my own labs while doing CBT Nuggets)

If you can pass the Boson tests (without having the answers memorized), I'm pretty confident you can pass the ICND1. I was able to pass "comfortably" (trying not to violate NDA by telling my actual score) with about 15 minutes left. Boson seemed a little harder than the actual exam.

I plan on taking a break for a week or two and will be studying for ICND2 soon.

If you have any questions that won't voliate NDA, let me know and I'll try to respond.

Thanks all for your support and good luck to others sitting the exam soon!

H3||scr3am

Congratulations on passing, I hope to have similar results in a few days

castagnolac

Congrats on passing! Mine is this week and hoping for similar result!

Mooseboost

Congrats on the pass! Won't be long before you have your CCNA! What are your plans afterwards?

Jon_Cisco

Great Job on the pass! Good Luck with ICND2

moparbob

zaaa wrote: »

Update: I passed.

My study materials:
- CBTNuggets
- Boson ExSim
- Physical lab (made up my own labs while doing CBT Nuggets)

If you can pass the Boson tests (without having the answers memorized), I'm pretty confident you can pass the ICND1. I was able to pass "comfortably" (trying not to violate NDA by telling my actual score) with about 15 minutes left. Boson seemed a little harder than the actual exam.

I plan on taking a break for a week or two and will be studying for ICND2 soon.

If you have any questions that won't voliate NDA, let me know and I'll try to respond.

Thanks all for your support and good luck to others sitting the exam soon!

Did is you use any books? I am not really a reader so I am using videos and labs.

Thanks

siggnation

Congrats on the pass!

zaaa

Thanks all!

Mooseboost wrote: »

Congrats on the pass! Won't be long before you have your CCNA! What are your plans afterwards?

I'm wanting to get into InfoSec. I'm weak on the network side and linux side. As it currently stands, I plan to do (in this order): CCNA R&S, Linux+, Sec+, OSCP. I need to do a lot of at home pen-testing to prep myself for OSCP and fully determine if I want to go that route or not. Depending on how long it takes me, somewhere in between I may need to renew my MCSE as it expires May 2016.

moparbob wrote: »

Did is you use any books? I am not really a reader so I am using videos and labs.

Thanks

No. I hate reading large books. You couldn't pay me enough money to read one of those 600+ page cert books.

I spent A LOT of time labbing. Basically what I did was labbed as I did CBTNuggets. After each video, I would basically re-do what Jeremy did, then I would recreate something random and elaborate using the same idea. The last two weeks consisted of me doing massive labs. I took all the ICND1 standards and put them into a big excel sheet, then made a lab that incorporated most of them.

Concepts I had a difficult time grasping I spent a lot more time on, and used other sources on the internet (such as reading stuff on this forum) for more info.