CCNA Version 3 curriculum

Rebound86

I have only just joined this forum so you will have to forgive me if this topic has been talked into the ground already (I had a quick skim but could not see anything much on 3.0) It seems to me that there are quite a few people complaining about versions 3 curriculum. I can see why Cisco have really upped the standard with this new curriculum it is a little harder. The readability seems to be a major issue particularly on exams. I would have to say that the changes are good. I have gone from reading a chapter 1 or 2 times through and getting 2 or more questions wrong was bad to reading a chapter then re-reading and taking copious amounts of note to get myself a mark of anthing between 80 to 90% while this is a pain and is more work cisoc have forced me to get it drilled into my head this can only prove a benefit in the long run. Have any others among you been having a little more trouble with the v3 curriculum? Have you changes your study methods and what works for you? I would VERY much like my marks to go back up to what they were with the old curriculum!

Sartan

I just finished module 3 of CCNA 3.0.
I've come to realize that I'm relatively lucky that I get a stack of 5 routers and 3 switches to play with every day, so that's a definate plus on my studies.

Anyways:
CCNA 1 is absolutely *brutal*.
I was taking 2 modules a day, 8 hours a day and 3 hours of study a night roughly. It was totally mind boggling.
The online curriculum was very informative, but the questions that Cisco had decided to use were retarded.
Needless to say, my binary average was floating around 76%. That really did suck. Since cisco changed the binary weighting to domain knowledge my mark went up a few percent...

I completely forget his name, but the President of Cisco Canada visited my school a few months ago. He talked about his business model.. We asked him some questions, including outsourcing, cash flow, hardware creation, and the CCNA curriculum. The CCNA online school was created in order to help Cisco provide trained employees to support the hardware they sell. However, some companies were complaining, because the CCNA 2.something certified morons were even more moronic than usual in general. Cisco agreed to make the exams more difficult, and 3.0 was released shortly thereafter.

After CCNA1, I still got roughly the same grades on exams, but I almost didn't study at all. I read through the material a few times, and messed around on the routers for a few hours at a time. I went through the Cisco lab book and read lots of documentation on the net. I dove right into the IOS, and the second configuration I did after the basic IP and RIP setup was enable DHCP, DNS and NAT. That built a great foundation on the rest of the course.

CCNA2-3 were absolute breezes compared to 1. These two curriculums weren't focused on massive massive topics, but rather narrowed down. My confidence actually rose, I had a better understanding of the course objectives, I studied much less (because i didnt need to), and generally had a blast.

For the end of my ramble; Hang in there! It gets better.
Dive into routers if you can. If you can't, get a simulator as soon as possible. The online curriculum is not enough to pass the module exams (unless you can study in that sort of way), I think real good solid practice is needed. Theory only comes with practice!

I sent a rather strongly worded letter to Cisco a few months ago because I was quite pissed off about it as well. They did reply, and said they were taking care of it. They temporarily alleivated the bad scores by implementing domain score grading, and a later email promised that 3.1 will be much better. (hee hee one of my classmates emailed cisco saying "this cisco ccna level 1 sucks nuts", cisco replied, "it is in our opinion that the Cisco CCNA V3.0 module 1 curriculum doesn't 'suck nut'")

A recent email also said they were doing some restructuring of the curriculums in January, but since I was already enrolled in the earlier ones it didn't apply.

I start CCNA4 in 2 weeks after I finish my Security+ training. yipee! hope i'm ready to write the ccna Good luck rebound, it's not so bad.