How much have the routing & switching exams changed?

Julie Jones

Background: I work in the industry and have for eight years. I took all the CCNP exams in 2002-2003 approx. My CCNP expired in 2006. I have access to various production networks, as well as a good lab, at work.

I have excellent notes for the Routing and Switching exams... that are at least 5 years old, LOL.
I will obviously have to consult the current recommended books as well as my notes, but how much has the material really changed? How much harder are the exams? I found Routing tough enough the last time... I did pass first try, but barely. It sounds like the current Routing exam is killer.

The new exams, do they correspond at all to the old Remote Access and CIT? Is there any exam that is somewhat easier than the others, in the way the CIT was... for those of us in the industry who do those show commands all day long anyway, it by far the easiest exam.

Turgon

Hi Julle,

I would say if you still have your notes you should be fine really. You will need to brush up on things and make sure you are current with the latest CCNP blueprint. It might be an idea for you to try out some of the latest CCNP practice tests from Boson etc to see where you are at and get an overview of the latest topics. You did the CCNP before and have experience, put the hours in on the study front and it shouldn't take you long to clear the CCNP again. You will need CCNA if that has expired.

PM me for more advice if you wish.

mikej412

When the last changes to the CCNP happened, I think Cisco said the BSCI and BCMSN were about 25% new material -- but when you compare the CCNP Exam Blueprints, it doesn't really look like that much had changed.

642-801 BSCI vs 642-901 BSCI
Added Multicast and IPv6.

642-811 BCMSN vs 642-812 BCMSN
Add Wireless, Voice, changed Security topics, moved Multicasting to BSCI.


For the other 2 new exams you've got MPLS, Wireless, more QoS, Voice, more Security, and wireless. Some of the BCRAN teleworker stuff is in the 642-825 ISCW exam, but the rest is new. The 642-845 ONT exam could almost be call the QoS Lite exam -- toss the Odom QoS book nto your study plan and you could study for this one and the 642-642 QOS exam at the same time -- but don't forget to study the Voice and Secuirty stuff for the ONT exam.

I think CIT was easy because it didn't add much new material over the first 3 exams. If you kept track of the show and debug commands while studying the other exams, you were also preparing for CIT.

I think "easy" depends on the person. I was routing on my UNIX systems long before the first switches came out -- so I found BSCI (the old one) the easiest CCNP exam. And since I found ISDN annoying (and didn't use it at work) I took BCRAN first before I forgot the ISDN I had learned for the CCNA -- but even then it was just annoying, not hard.

The more hands-on practice you do for the exams, the easier the exams get.

Julie Jones

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

As for ISDN, yeah, even when I *did* use it in my job I found the Cisco stuff on it highly annoying! I have never heard anyone use those lettered reference points. I got motivated to finally do my CCNA over when I heard they had removed ISDN!

Turgon

Julie Jones wrote:

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

As for ISDN, yeah, even when I *did* use it in my job I found the Cisco stuff on it highly annoying! I have never heard anyone use those lettered reference points. I got motivated to finally do my CCNA over when I heard they had removed ISDN!

hehehe I like ISDN. Glad we could help!