Passed 640-801 - CCNA!
I just got back from the 640-801, and I passed with a 936. I am excited! I have been studying for around 2.5 months now. However about 3 weeks ago, I hit a stretch where I kind of lost my focus and didn't study for around a week. However, I snapped back into study mode, scheduled the test, and now here I am a CCNA.
This test was intense. Partially because they only give you 90 minutes, and mainly because you can't go back to review your answers. The simulations were very nervewracking because in the back of my mind I knew I couldn't spend more than ~ 10 minutes on each one, so that kind of made me a little frantic. In the first one I made a really stupid mistake, but discovered it a little later. I'm still not 100% I got that one correct.
This test is most definitely not one to take lightly. It really tests all of your knowledge on the material.
Now on to my preparation:
I began with Todd Lammle's excellent Sybex CCNA book. This book is just fantastic, and I echo other's sentiments about the subnetting chapter. He made it so easy. I breezed through this book in around 2 weeks and at that point I was very confident in my abilities. (I had experience working with Cisco products, so I wasn't starting from scratch.)
However, I thought am I a little too confident, are there things Lammle didn't cover? I had read that you really need to use both Lammle and Odom, so I found a decent deal on the new edition of the Cisco Press Odom books, and bought them. I got through the first couple sections quickly and still had some great momentum going. However after a couple of weeks of reading Odom I lost steam. Thus the foremention period where I stopped studying.
I'm just going to say this. I really wish I hadn't wasted the money on Odom. Lammle gives you all the info you need for 640-801 as long as you read it closely ( I read cover to cover once taking notes, and scanned through it probably 3 times).
Odom is just boring and gives you way too much information. I completely understand why he does. It's really intended for the 2 test Intro / ICND approach. I just got wrapped in trying to learn all of the minutia he presented and it got overwealming.
When I picked the studying back up, I didn't even look at Odom, just Lammle. I did use Odom's included NetSim practice questions though, which were only the redeming quality of those books. Oh and by the way. The evaluation Boson simulator that comes with it, yeah that's completely worthless. I sat down to try the 1st scenario, and one of the features required to complete the scenario(I believe assigning an IP to a switch) wasn't availble without upgrading to the full version. Just ridiculous.
I was however fortunate enough to have a home lab consiteing of a couple 2500's and 1924s. I didn't do a whole lot on the switches, but the work I did on the routers was very valuable.
So my recommendation is get Lammle and some routers. It's definitely the best, most concise way to study for 640-801. I'm just extemely happy I passed, because this was a very tough exam.
