I've been lurking around this forum for the last couple months and would just like to extend a hearty Thank You to everyone involved, since it helps to keep on track knowing there are others out there in similiar situations.
I used the Cisco Press Intro/ICND books by Wendell Odom, and while it does get a little stale at times I found they are pretty 'straight to the point.' I read through them both but then lost time to study due to work for roughly 5 months. I ended up reading through (most) of them again within the last few weeks.
I've had a little experience with configuring routers in the field, but as a field tech the only time we got to whip out the laptop was when the router was misconfigured, or somebody forgot to configure it entirely before sending it to be installed, and even then we just typed in whatever we were told to by the Cisco guy.
I played with the Boson simulator that comes with the Cisco Press books then promptly lost it, so I started to buy everything for a home lab. I only had a single 2512 router to play with when I did my first test attempt and got a 809 - much higher than I was expecting. I attempted the exam to try and gauge exactly what I needed to study, and in the vain attempt that I did pass I could throw it on my resume for a job that was closing soon. :P
Second attempt was today, a few weeks after the first attempt, and passed with a 961.
Planning and Designing 100%
Implementation and Operation 100%
Troubleshooting 83%
Technology 100%
I now have two 2924 switches and two 2512 routers, but still haven't received all the cables, etc. yet, which shows in the test results
Definitely easier to pass with a good simulator or real equipment, but don't think it's impossible to achieve without them!
Access Lists and knowing how to look for information with the show commands are essential - the latter I still need to work on a bit.
