Differences in Cisco exam topics and the Cisco press books

adrianm68

Hi,

Still studying for switch, 300-115, working through the David Hucaby official switch cert book and learning all about CEF, the FIB, adjacency tables, as well as logging, NTP etc etc.

I stroll over to the Cisco exam descriptions and notice all of the above is not in switch, but rather in the route exam descriptions. Any else notice this difference? I know I need to learn it, but why put it in the switch book? Most likely it will be duplicated in the route book also (I'm not there yet).

There is zero in the exam descriptions on switch about logging. The next chapter in the switch book is all about SNMP, another topic not mentioned in the switch exam descriptions.

I know there is a difference between learning to be a better tech and learning to pass an exam, but when the book is the 'official cert guide', shouldn't it stick to the exam topics?

/adrian

negru_tudor

Trust me, you need to know everything in that OCG then some more on top of that.

adrianm68

Then the Cisco blueprint is wrong and needs updating. If that is the case, then perhaps one should study for all three exams prior to sitting the first.... who knows, maybe BGP might be in the switch exam, given the blueprint is useless....

ande0255

Id suggest just using a couple different sources (teachers) at least so you can get two unique perspectives, and they may cover topics the other didn't.

Iristheangel

adrianm68 wrote: »

Then the Cisco blueprint is wrong and needs updating. If that is the case, then perhaps one should study for all three exams prior to sitting the first.... who knows, maybe BGP might be in the switch exam, given the blueprint is useless....

Heh... Some people complain about not learning enough from material or the topics not being relevant and some people complain that it's too much.

Technically speaking, the blueprint is not wrong. If you feel CEF and FIB is not valid subjects for the Route exam, find your nearest extremely busy edge router and disable it. Then check the CPU if it's still running.

It's one of those "fuzzy" topics that can belong on either exam. I would say from an engineer and learning perspective, it's important to understand what CEF and FIB does on your switching platform as well as the router. There are two different authors for the Route and the Switch OCG books and I guarantee you that they didn't sit and talk about what topics they'd grab for their books to avoid redundancy. Same with logging. Logging saves lives, folks

Worse case scenario, you'll have to skip a few pages in the Route book if you feel like you've mastered it but it's still important to know even if you're just touching switches. The author probably wanted to not just check the blueprint boxes.

I would advise you to focus less on learning the bare minimum for an exam and the focus more on learning what an engineer would need to know from a practical sense.

negru_tudor

These are not easy exams but you have to step back and reconsider why you're doing these courses / studies. You want to be a better overall engineer so just go with the book. No harm if you learn about SNMP in SWITCH and SNMP comes up again in ROUTE. You'll have to use it sooner or later

Good luck with your studies!