How much harder is the CCNP than the CCNA?

kenny504

Probably a lame question to ask but...I think i'll get some interesting responses....i hope...lol....So those who have ccnp cert or are preparing for it:

How much harder is the ccnp than the ccna? I know its alot harder but as far as knowledge scope and understanding....with ccna knowledge it shud be fairly ok....shud it??

mikej412

kenny504 wrote:

How much harder is the ccnp than the ccna?

Each exam, individually, is 2-1/2 times harder than the CCNA.

The good news is that after a CCNP exam or two, you finally begin to realize how easy the CCNA really was -- which then makes the remaining CCNP become easier.

Webmaster

I know its alot harder but as far as knowledge scope and understanding....with ccna knowledge it shud be fairly ok....shud it??

I passed the CCNA/CCNA and BSCI exam long ago (so long they expired ) and imo there's more truth in the opposite. A CCNP exam is not that much harder than the CCNA exam. Although CCNP is partly more of the same, it has a broader scope and goes deeper into the material. Which automatically may make it harder, but if you can pass your CCNA and have a solid understanding of the those topics you'll have a good foundation for the CCNP, which evens out the harder topics a bit. You obviously have to pass more exams for the CCNP which is 'more' than one, but not necessarily harder.

Webmaster

Interesting, 2 1/2 times Maybe I had an advantage with the CCDA, and the BSCI wasn't exactly 'easy', but for someone without experience or other relevant education the CCNA contains a lot of info. Quite a lot more than the BCMSN for example, which even includes topics from the CCNA. And based on the comments in the forums over the past years, it seems that passing the CIT 'after' having passed the CCNA, BSCI, BSCM, and BCRAN is a lot easier than passing the CCNA for someone who just started with networking.

I can imagine the CCNA looks 2 1/2 times easier once you have your CCNP though. When you have done those things over and over again and it's all plain logic (saving configs, managing flash content, basic commands, difference between config modes, memory types etc), but to a beginner these can be challenging topics because it's new and those devices can be pretty intimidating.

How hard would you rate the CCNA exam and 'a' CCNP exam vs the CCIE written? (We need to do an interview Mike )

I'm interested to see the response of others who are studying for or already passed one or more CCNP exam.

Paul Boz

The CCNP exams take your core knowledge of Cisco Internetworking and flesh it out. You wind up knowing a significantly deeper volume of information about the stuff the CCNA touches on. If you think the CCNA is an in depth cert (and it is compared to most entry certs) just wait until you sit down and study for something like the BSCI.

Dilan77

Admittedly I've only taken one of the CCNP exams, but I'd say I probably found revising for the CCNA harder than for the BCMSN.

With the CCNA, you are tested on such a broad range of topics. The breadth of each topic is obviously not that much compares to their corresponding CCNP exams, but there's shed loads to learn.

But, at the end of the day, if it's something you enjoy, you're happy learning, buying your own equipment and practising on them, then I think you'll do well...

I do have to say though that I'm not sure why certain topic were in the BCMSN in the first place. Sure, intervlan routing, MLS, STP deserves to be in there, but wasn't so sure of the relevance of HSRP and bits of multicasting. Perhaps they were put there to ease the load on the BSCI?

MrD

Yeah, each exam is different to everyone, but as far as why HSRP/multicasting is on the exam check these links out:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps646/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a0080115934.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps646/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a00801cdf82.html

MLS takes on pretty much all of a routers functionality...

Minus serial of course.

mikej412

Webmaster wrote:

Interesting, 2 1/2 times

Since I did the CCNA Network Academy, I compared the CCNP Academy Courses to the CCNA modules.

The CCNA had some repetition in the first couple of semesters, and the CCNA4 semester (WANs) had only 6 modules.

Looking at the modules, the CCNA modules usually had 2 or 3 sections. The CCNP modules usually had 5 or more sections.

With the CCNP semesters, you'd take the exam after each semester, so you could focus more -- so I figure the 4 exams vs 1 exam washes out.

That's how I came up with that number -- and that's what I used when I wondered about how hard the CCNP was compared to the CCNA. It worked for me!

Webmaster

Ok, makes sense, thanks for explaining.

Humper

I wouldn't say any of the material is truly that difficult to understand, what I have trouble with is remembering it if I haven't used it in a while.