CCNA:Security my perspective.
binargs
Member Posts: 55 ■■□□□□□□□□
These are my personal views.
Cisco exams have always been two shot exams for me. I never passed a single Cisco exam in one shot my whole life.
The reason why I got into CCNAS is because I originally thought it will almost exclusively deal with ASA Firewalls, which is something I use frequently. But it turned out that it is only 30%.
I do not know if I am getting stupider or just old, but I had to take time off from work for 3 weeks and study in order to get this cert done in order to renew my Cisco certification.
Cisco certification is getting worse, as the exam incorporates more and more sales material even you have no interest in it. I hope Cisco will change their qualification to product line based, like Microsoft is doing.
The official certification guide is worth nil. Omar Santos is probably the worst writer I ever had the displeasure of reading. His other books suck too. In the OCG entire sections such as Private VLAN is left out. there are different font size and screen shot from XP to Windows 7. If you are being paid to update a book, don't be a lazy **** and reuse old screenshots. If you look at the general trend of OCG Cisco books, most of the recent ones are very poorly reviewed.
The 31 days before your CCNAS book was helpful. Visit the links on Cisco website mentioned by the book. Study them.
The Boson exam sim taught me bunch of extra material that I focused on. Understand and learn fromt he explanations. They will be on the exam.
CBT nuggets Keith Barker might be very enthusiastic about his lessons, but he came off to me as a hippie that thinks there are unicorns that shits ice cream. I do not know if he is pretending or not but he comes off so cheerful it's to a point I can not stand. On his CBT nuggets he kept assigning "homework" which refer to his old CCNAS video and CCNPS videos. Sometimes 6 hours long in a single batch. That gets annoying real quick.
Take the exam once, remember the question you don't understand and after you leave the exam room, write down as much as possible on a piece of paper. Let this be your guidemap for correction. Go over those areas.
The exam itself is meant to trip you up. Out of 5 answers there are two wrong and 3 answer that could work. Your job is to use the skill you learned from 31 day and Boson to rule the best 2 answer.
the second time I took the exam, there is a question on the sim that I tried to double click but it did not work. Maybe there is another way to get to that screen but the way I am used to did not work.
Out of the 67 questions I have about 23 questions that I was not absolutely positive about and had to do an educated guess based on what i have learned. I did much better the second time around. But I was surprised that I passed the second time around.
If you are looking for way to renew your Cisco cert, this is not a easy way. You better off retake the ICND2 or try the CCNA CyOps, from what I heard it is about the same level with Security+.
The biggest complaint I have is that Cisco and others do not tell you which questions you got wrong and which one you got right. In life, you always get your test paper back to show where the error is made. There is no chance to learn or correct from Cisco and IT certs. That in general needs to change.
Cisco exams have always been two shot exams for me. I never passed a single Cisco exam in one shot my whole life.
The reason why I got into CCNAS is because I originally thought it will almost exclusively deal with ASA Firewalls, which is something I use frequently. But it turned out that it is only 30%.
I do not know if I am getting stupider or just old, but I had to take time off from work for 3 weeks and study in order to get this cert done in order to renew my Cisco certification.
Cisco certification is getting worse, as the exam incorporates more and more sales material even you have no interest in it. I hope Cisco will change their qualification to product line based, like Microsoft is doing.
The official certification guide is worth nil. Omar Santos is probably the worst writer I ever had the displeasure of reading. His other books suck too. In the OCG entire sections such as Private VLAN is left out. there are different font size and screen shot from XP to Windows 7. If you are being paid to update a book, don't be a lazy **** and reuse old screenshots. If you look at the general trend of OCG Cisco books, most of the recent ones are very poorly reviewed.
The 31 days before your CCNAS book was helpful. Visit the links on Cisco website mentioned by the book. Study them.
The Boson exam sim taught me bunch of extra material that I focused on. Understand and learn fromt he explanations. They will be on the exam.
CBT nuggets Keith Barker might be very enthusiastic about his lessons, but he came off to me as a hippie that thinks there are unicorns that shits ice cream. I do not know if he is pretending or not but he comes off so cheerful it's to a point I can not stand. On his CBT nuggets he kept assigning "homework" which refer to his old CCNAS video and CCNPS videos. Sometimes 6 hours long in a single batch. That gets annoying real quick.
Take the exam once, remember the question you don't understand and after you leave the exam room, write down as much as possible on a piece of paper. Let this be your guidemap for correction. Go over those areas.
The exam itself is meant to trip you up. Out of 5 answers there are two wrong and 3 answer that could work. Your job is to use the skill you learned from 31 day and Boson to rule the best 2 answer.
the second time I took the exam, there is a question on the sim that I tried to double click but it did not work. Maybe there is another way to get to that screen but the way I am used to did not work.
Out of the 67 questions I have about 23 questions that I was not absolutely positive about and had to do an educated guess based on what i have learned. I did much better the second time around. But I was surprised that I passed the second time around.
If you are looking for way to renew your Cisco cert, this is not a easy way. You better off retake the ICND2 or try the CCNA CyOps, from what I heard it is about the same level with Security+.
The biggest complaint I have is that Cisco and others do not tell you which questions you got wrong and which one you got right. In life, you always get your test paper back to show where the error is made. There is no chance to learn or correct from Cisco and IT certs. That in general needs to change.
Comments
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yoba222
Member Posts: 1,237 ■■■■■■■■□□
. . . The official certification guide is worth nil. Omar Santos is probably the worst writer I ever had the displeasure of reading. His other books suck too. In the OCG entire sections such as Private VLAN is left out. there are different font size and screen shot from XP to Windows 7. If you are being paid to update a book, don't be a lazy **** and reuse old screenshots. If you look at the general trend of OCG Cisco books, most of the recent ones are very poorly reviewed. . .
Thanks for the heads up. I will avoid all of his books. It looks like he coauthored on the CCNA Cyberops book with Joseph Muniz. Judging from the dozens of typos in a Joseph Muniz video course I could only imagine how a textbook might be. His content was good though.
I can't stand sloppy/lazy authors who rely on incompetent editors. Seems to be common in the industry though.A+, Network+, CCNA, LFCS,
Security+, eJPT, CySA+, PenTest+,
Cisco CyberOps, GCIH, VHL,
In progress: OSCP -
TechGuru80
Member Posts: 1,539 ■■■■■■□□□□
1. The reason why I got into CCNAS is because I originally thought it will almost exclusively deal with ASA Firewalls, which is something I use frequently. But it turned out that it is only 30%.
2. Cisco certification is getting worse, as the exam incorporates more and more sales material even you have no interest in it. I hope Cisco will change their qualification to product line based, like Microsoft is doing.
3. In the OCG entire sections such as Private VLAN is left out. there are different font size and screen shot from XP to Windows 7.
4. The Boson exam sim taught me bunch of extra material that I focused on. Understand and learn fromt he explanations. They will be on the exam.
5. CBT nuggets Keith Barker
6. If you are looking for way to renew your Cisco cert, this is not a easy way. You better off retake the ICND2 or try the CCNA CyOps, from what I heard it is about the same level with Security+.
1. CCNA:Security was never entirely about ASAs...but it's usually easier to get hands on with an ASA than some of the software based technology covered.
2. Let's be honest, you are taking a Cisco exam...but also they mention a lot of products so you are aware of what is out there. They are also trying to improve their security marketshare.
3. I don't think the previous version really covered private VLANs either. As far as Windows XP/7, Windows 7 is still used in some larger corporations but without knowing what the screenshots are showing it's hard to know if it is a deprecated feature or the same across the board.
4. I am a huge fan of Boson too.
5. KB wrote the previous version OCG, and honestly a lot of the material at the CCNA level hasn't changed drastically. I totally get it though, some people find certain instructors difficult to learn from...but he is probably one of the more knowledgable CCNA:Security instructors at least for online learning.
6. It took me a couple tries to pass CCNA:Security too, but I've read from other people the passing score is significantly less than when I took the previous version. I didn't take the Cyber Ops but started looking at a lot of the material and as far as the material goes it would be a step up from Security+. -
emaz
Member Posts: 34 ■■■□□□□□□□
I'm starting to get worried in taking this exam on May 11th. I'm seeing a lot of people say that the study material out there is bad and the OCG is not done well or does not cover things well enough for the exam. I have always had a decent experience with the OCG books, however, to be honest I never have enough time to read them from front to back while practicing for exams. Its just too much information and there is no way you are going to remember ALL of it for the exam. Its information overload. With that being said I signed up about a month ago and thought that I would have enough time with my experience and prior certs, now I'm worried if I made a mistake! lol. I'm really just taking it to renew my CCNA R&S, as I don't have enough time to try to obtain my CCNP at this juncture. I guess I will see how it goes!
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labscloud
Member Posts: 137 ■■□□□□□□□□
Has anybody used Chris Bryant's Udemy course for studying? I'm on Section 2 and it seems really useful, I used his CCNA R/S to study for the exam and it helped tremendously. I'm planning on taking my CCNA-SEC in 2-3 months, now I'm a little timid. I'm def going to pick up the 31 days before book.
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Ertaz
Member Posts: 934 ■■■■■□□□□□
If you are looking for way to renew your Cisco cert, this is not a easy way. You better off retake the ICND2 or try the CCNA CyOps, from what I heard it is about the same level with Security+.
Categorically untrue. The first half of the Cyber OPS is easy. The second half is a level above CySA+. -
nisti2
Member Posts: 503 ■■■■□□□□□□
Lol the book for SecFnd is so boring!Omar Santos is probably the worst writer I ever had the displeasure of reading. His other books suck too. In the OCG entire sections such as Private VLAN is left out.2020 Year goals:
Already passed: Oracle Cloud, AZ-900
Taking AZ-104 in December.
"Certs... is all about IT certs!" -
medic
Member Posts: 116 ■■■□□□□□□□
I skipped most of the OCG while I was preparing for the exam. It went extensively into The Cisco Configuration Professional (CCP), which is not on the exam.
I thought the CBT Nuggets, with the homework (yes, annoying to have to keep jumping around), was very relevant to the exam. The accompanying "Parka document" was very helpful as well.
I also used the Boson practice test, which was excellent.
That said, there were still a few questions on the exam that were not covered by anything I used to prepare. Just have to take an educated guess on those. -
emaz
Member Posts: 34 ■■■□□□□□□□
I skipped most of the OCG while I was preparing for the exam. It went extensively into The Cisco Configuration Professional (CCP), which is not on the exam.
I thought the CBT Nuggets, with the homework (yes, annoying to have to keep jumping around), was very relevant to the exam. The accompanying "Parka document" was very helpful as well.
I also used the Boson practice test, which was excellent.
That said, there were still a few questions on the exam that were not covered by anything I used to prepare. Just have to take an educated guess on those.
I don't believe you have to hop around anymore. He tied all the videos into the CCNA course. However, the course is freakin long! Still not finished with it and I have about 3 weeks to go! lol
