Passed ICND1/CCENT! (and the resources that I used)

ps.89

I passed the ICND1 exam today with a score of 913! It's been long overdue. I went through Cisco's Network Academy several years ago when working on my bachelor's degree, but then I stopped pursuing the certification after I graduated in 2017. I finally decided to buckle down these last four months.

Resources I used:

• CCENT/CCNA ICND1 100-105 Official Cert Guide by Wendell Odom: Dry and mostly boring, but a required reading. I read this book once in its entirety and plan on reading the 200-105 book for the CCNA.
• CCNA 2018 200-125 Video Boot Camp With Chris Bryant: This was probably the single best resource that I had. I didn't want to dish out hundreds of dollars for CBTNuggets. I found Chris Bryant's training videos on Udemy for $10. I only watched the ICND1 portion of the videos and they were an integral part of my success.
  
• Packet Tracer labs for the CCNA exam: Practical CCNA tests by David Bombal: This video course was my main labbing resource. David Bombal provides Packet Tracer labs for you to download and follow along with in his videos. This is a free Udemy course.
  
• 31 Days Before Your CCNA Routing & Switching Exam by Allan Johnson: After going through the first three resources listed above, I was still unsure of how prepared I was. I decided to give this book a go. You're meant to read one chapter per day for 31 days, but I only read the ICND1 portion of the book. This was free for me through my company paid O'Reilly/Safari Online account.
• Cisco ICND1 100-105 Exam Training videos by John Pickard: This is a short, 6-hour long video series that covers the ICND1. I easily watched the course a week before taking the exam to see where I was at. At this point, the videos felt more like review to me so I guess this is when I knew I was ready. This was also free for me through my company paid O'Reilly/Safari Online account.
• Various subnetting and practice test websites: Some of these online generated practice exams are pretty hard, which is a good thing. They're still based on the same exam topics, but the questions are much more in depth than the real exam.

Not sure what I can really discuss due to the Non-Disclosure Agreement, but I will say that I had some subnetting questions and CLI configuration questions - - not many, but I did have them so don't skip subnetting and CLI. If the exam is the first task you have in your day, I would recommend waking up several hours before the test and practice subnetting, reading over your notes, or taking online practice tests, just to help you wake up and get you in the right mindset. When you arrive and check in, try and use the bathroom even if you don't feel like needing to at that moment..

And thanks to everyone here on TE! I've been blessed to be part of the TE community. What a great community we are.

Mr.Robot255

well done Ps.89  and great score

Jon_Cisco

Great job! Nice list of resources. Good luck with the next exam.

greg9891

Excellent News

Spiegel

w00t! Awesome job!