How to Pass CCENT, and request for ICND2 info!

dpbaker2

Hi All,

Just wanted to post requests from previous candidates of ICND2 that have passed, and can advise exactly which sticky topics appear in the SIM questions?

I am religiously reading cover-to-cover Odom's book, which is truly excellent, and I passed the ICND1 second time with 923, but only after a failed first attempt and then subsequently studying the following topics to ensure the SIMs passed, so see below for my wonderful topics that really helped me pass ICND1 second time:

Local device hardening/security: passwords/usernames, login local, SSH/Telnet connections, line vty, MD5 hashed passwords vs cleartext

DHCP - enabling on an interface and configuring, which commands to use to view the bindings, address pool and summary.
ACLs - remember that the 'Deny All' logic, unless an explicit rule is in place - this caught me out on previous SIM's. Be familiar with direction of ACL's inbound/outbound.

Subnetting: be fluent in seeing an IP, and knowing whether or not 2 interface are in the same subnet. If node A is in 10.99.100.6 /29 and node B is in 10.99.100.18/29, you'd need to know these are in 2 different subnets. Also cover the valid addresses within a subnet. Check out the cisco **** sheet which denotes all of the possible ranges in an 8-bit mask - this is invaluable to write down during the 15 minutes introductory video for the exam.

Other notable multiple choice type-questions, wildcard masks (understanding 0=ignore an octet and 255=anything 1-254), ipv6 address formats (unique local, global unicast, multicast),VLAN's - native VLAN, 802.1Q tagging, cable types (straight through, crossover and COM), MAC address learning process (switch flooding when a switch doesn't know a MAC, what happens?) IOS/router startup - POST, startup config/running config and flash - what do these each contain, and the config register x0,1,2 values - what happens on startup with these values changed?

I wholly recommend using the Wendel Odom book and all the mutliple choices on the adjoining CD.

Any help towards my ICND2 would be much appreciated, I'm using odom, Lynda labs, packet tracer (any other lab ideas for this?). Any recommendations on which topics I should be REALLY good with? The lab questions seem to hold so much weight on the score I don't want to pay another £150 per resit.

Cheers!

WastedHat

Congrats on the pass! When you say 'sticky topics' are you referring to the exam topics? I'm not sure if its a good idea to say exactly which topics are on the sims since Cisco's NDA is quite broad. I've seen "pass posts" about it before but I'm going to err on the side of caution just incase.

I'd glad you found Odom useful, theres a nice amount of detail in his books. I think at the beginning he gives a nice guide on how you should focus on the words "Describe", "Verify", "Configure", "Troubleshoot" from the exam topics. Study from multiple sources too, Todd Lammle's book is easy to read if you're used to Odom. Have you considered the Boson exam sim? the price tag is a kick in the nuts but you're getting 3 realsitic exams with a refund if you fail, and you're saving the price of a resit if you pass.

You could also give GNS3 a go if you can find some images. It's pretty easy to set up and you'll get a chance to do Routing / WAN labs with the full IOS.