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ICND1 Passed

MyCompSucksMyCompSucks Member Posts: 5 ■■■□□□□□□□
Passed ICND1 today with a score of 842.

The whole time I was taking the test I thought I failed, but ended up squeezing by. I studied seriously for just over a month. I started studying months ago, but not seriously and watched about 70% of all the 100-105 videos by Ross on Pluralsight. These videos were excellent, but I ended up never finishing the completing video series.

I recently started a new job in early September and got serious about studying for the exam at that time. I spent at minimum 2 hours per weekday and probably 8+ hours on weekends. I also studied a little bit at work as well, but not too much. I used Wendell's ICND1 book and also had purchased the net simulator, but this was for the 100-101 exam that I purchased a while back.

I wish I did more labbing. My method of study was thoroughly reading through each chapter and taking extensive notes. I ended up filling up half of one of those 3 subject mead notebooks(150 pages) with notes to drive home what I was reading, that's 75+ pages of hand written notes. I went to bed a few nights, my hand hurting from taking so much notes. I wish I didn't do this though, I think the labs(net simulator) are what really helped with the commands and committing this to memory. I actually didn't ended up finishing all the labs/book and skipped NAT and the last Part, which is device management in Wendell's book. It was interesting, because on the exam it tells you what sections you did good/poor on and this was the section I did the worst on. More notes may be better later on in the high end exams, but didn't seem that necessary for this exam, although it helped me understand everything thoroughly.

Overall I am happy with how quickly I took the exam and glad I didn't keep putting it off longer. Think about it, would you rather pass an exam after 1 month or 1 year? By that time, the exam will be updated with new topics, etc. I'm currently a network administrator, but never really worked on Cisco equipment previously this new job, so nothing really transferring to helping me at the exam. The knowledge learned is really going to help me with my new job though and I look forward to studying for the full CCNA, but hope to go at a more moderate pace than I did for ICND1 and not rush it as much as I did (3-4 months seems reasonable).

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