How to study for 210-260 exam

bigbenhotness

So I have been going through the OCG and about 2/3 I just don't understand when I'm reading it. How do you guys study? Do you read it once then go back and try to memorize key concepts? Do you read each chapter and go back to previous concepts a little at a time? Do you keep reviewing and don't go forward til you understand that chapter fully? I need to pass this class and dunno how to truly study and what other resources needed.

Archon

Do you not understand the book or the subject?

There is another thread on here where people are complaining the OCG alone isn't enough to pass the exam.

NetworkNewb

Archon wrote: »

Do you not understand the book or the subject?

There is another thread on here where people are complaining the OCG alone isn't enough to pass the exam.

I'm a really skeptic of that thread. Right now, I don't believe the person who is saying the book isn't enough to pass hasn't even taken the exam... and wondering how he is making that claim. Maybe he has and he knows what he is talking about though, waiting on his response.

I do have the OCG for the 210-260, but have really only read the first chapter so can't really say much on it. As far as studying, what I do is read the book with yellow highlighter and highlight anything I think is really important. Then after I read a chapter once, I go over the chapter just looking over the highlighted sections. Then to make sure I remember what I went over, the next day, I will go over the highlighted sections again.

Hondabuff

I will be sitting the exam tomorrow and report back of my opinion of it. During our boot camp Cisco has a set of slides that covers exactly what is in the exam and the type of questions to be asked by.. These slides are not to be released by the course instructor and are password protected by Cisco. Our Instructor is a CCIE and has taken the recent exam. He is allowed to go as far as mentioning what is "important" without violating NDA from Cisco. The labs alone are ASDM labs and require configuration of the ASA. Unless you have experience with an ASA with 9.0 code you will probably find it impossible to stumble through to pass them. Here is a look at what the new labs are like. There is also a lot of content on the new Firepower lineup of appliances. We just finished up SSL VPN's today on the ASA and I now have enough seat time to give it a go. Once I'm done with the course I will dig back into the 210 book and see how much content was really in the book. A lot of it so far that I have seen is not obvious and very easily overlooked. At the beginning of the week I swore that some of the content was not in the book but know I have been able to spot it. 80% of its there but not really clear in the subject content.

NetworkNewb

Thank you for your explanation Honda, appreciate it.

Looking forward to see what you think of the new exam. Haven't heard from anyone who has taken it yet. Good luck!

JoJoCal19

Thanks for the info Hondabuff. I have access to ASDM at work, however the network team won't let us do much with it unfortunately. If you can, let us know what the passing score is. I'm hoping it's lower than the last version.

bigbenhotness

thx for the replies guys. Yes it's a serious thread, just what I have been reading other people saying about this book.

Archon

My OCG was delivered today so will crack on as soon as.

Nightflier101BL

So, I'm currently studying for this thing. I'm also finding the OCG to be kind of light on some of the material. For example, the exam objective for Firewalls 5.2b - Functions of the state table. I would assume I would need an understanding of what this is, how it works and how to verify and view it. However, the book has only one sentence mentioning an actual state table. It explains stateful inspection in general but no deeper details on the table itself (traffic flows/protocols that are not statefully inspected by default and maintained in the table, "show connections", etc.) I only mention this because I was reading about this last night. ICMP is not inspected by default by the ASA, which is a very common troubleshooting step - I would think that would be mentioned in the book. Unless I'm missing something, I can't find any info on this in the OCG.

I don't know if this information is outside the scope of the CCNAS, but with everything I've been reading about CCNP material showing up and things coming from left field, I feel I should have a deeper understanding of all the topics to cover my bases. The whole book feels thin in the information and doesn't go very deep, just "this is the definition, this is how you do it in the ADSM, CLI, done"

With that being said, my approach to studying is taking an exam topic (Firewall, VPN, etc.) and spending a week on each with INE videos, Safari books, OCG, note taking and hands-on labs. I'm trying to read from a variety of sources and I'm not reading the OCG from cover to cover. I work on a topic, searching for info and things that I'm stuck on and then move on to the next. I watch the videos and type notes at the same time, later adding them all to a KB organized by subjects.

islandboy80

Good advice Nightflier101BL. Especially that last paragraph. That is my approach. Working hard on my KB for every objective.

Thodoris21

Hi guys! Does anyone has or know how I can study for the new ccna security v3.0? I am finding the syllabus in gui version but I can't find it.Thank you!

OctalDump

Read and lab and read and lab and lab.

Or more coherently - read the topic once through, do the hands on labs and exercises, go back to the book where you need to, and then practice through again. Ideally, you want to be able to do all the hands on (commands, config, tshoot, etc) without referring back to the book.

What I'm finding out about the CCNA Security is how much it relies on good CCENT (and even CCNA R+S) knowledge. I was aiming for this month, now I'm not sure.

Thodoris21

Thanks for your reply...but where I can find the syllabus in gui version for v3.0?

atailorec2006

Hondabuff wrote: »

I will be sitting the exam tomorrow and report back of my opinion of it. During our boot camp Cisco has a set of slides that covers exactly what is in the exam and the type of questions to be asked by.. These slides are not to be released by the course instructor and are password protected by Cisco. Our Instructor is a CCIE and has taken the recent exam. He is allowed to go as far as mentioning what is "important" without violating NDA from Cisco. The labs alone are ASDM labs and require configuration of the ASA. Unless you have experience with an ASA with 9.0 code you will probably find it impossible to stumble through to pass them. Here is a look at what the new labs are like. There is also a lot of content on the new Firepower lineup of appliances. We just finished up SSL VPN's today on the ASA and I now have enough seat time to give it a go. Once I'm done with the course I will dig back into the 210 book and see how much content was really in the book. A lot of it so far that I have seen is not obvious and very easily overlooked. At the beginning of the week I swore that some of the content was not in the book but know I have been able to spot it. 80% of its there but not really clear in the subject content.

Hi Honda - how was the exam? Can you throw some light on exam? I am preparing for this exam and bit worried from what people saying on other threads.

OctalDump

Here are three techniques I have used at various times:

Read it and try to understand it as you go. This can mean stopping and thinking, looking things up, trying things as you read the book. This can be slow, but you feel like you understand it.

Read through it, maybe even skimming, ignoring if you don't understand stuff, just reading it, then go back and re-read the hard bits. This can help where sometimes later things explain earlier things.

Get an easier book, something really easy, like "Complete and utter stupid idiots guide to the basics of net sec for children, large print edition, with pictures". Because it is so easy, it builds up confidence whilst giving the 60,000 feet view of the subject.

The thing is if you are learning something new, it does take time and effort. The "newer" it is, the less familiar you are with the area, the longer it takes because you are learning so much more stuff for the first time. If you had Security+, CCNP R+S, and 3 years experience, then a lot of the content would already be familiar to you and you are just filling in the gaps. So, it is easier to read, you have more confidence, and you already have the broad overview.