Passed!

Hey all, thanks for the few bits of help. I passed my CCNA on Saturday. I just wanted to share the love. Here are a few pieces of advice:

1) Take the test even if you are not quite ready. Nothing can prepare you for the real thing like the real thing.
2) Get hands on experience
3) Set up your own CCNA lab, break it, learn how to fix it
4) Learn IP addressing so that you can do it in your head
5) Learn this stuff so that you can do it in the real world, not for a piece of paper.
6) Have fun

I gained most of my knowledge from operating my own Cisco lab comprised of 2 Cisco 2501's and a Catalyst 1900 Switch.

Good luck!

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Comments

Webmaster

Congratulations!

AnthonyJD81

teamanimal wrote:

I gained most of my knowledge from operating my own Cisco lab comprised of 2 Cisco 2501's and a Catalyst 1900 Switch.

how did you get the equipment? Did you buy it new from somewhere? Also, how much does that stuff usually go for? I would love to get the hands-on practice for the CCNA but depending on the costs of that stuff, it may be out of the question for me.

Any suggestions as to an alternative to the equipment practicing method?

Thanks
Anthony

teamanimal

Yes, I bought these from a co-worke of mine as he left my company. I got a really good deal on them. I paid 50,000 yen (about $400) for all three. I have also seen some pretty good deals on some of the auction sites, but it seems from some people's comments that you have to be careful what you buy on there.

Another great way to prepare is with the simulators. They can offer you a wide variety of platforms to setup your virtual lab, but the downside is that not all commands are the same and many commands don't work.

I think you have to be willing to spend some money to get by the test. But if you are on a budget, you should definitely go for the Sybex Virtual Trainer set that I mentioned above. For the price, it does the job.

[/quote]

how did you get the equipment? Did you buy it new from somewhere? Also, how much does that stuff usually go for? I would love to get the hands-on practice for the CCNA but depending on the costs of that stuff, it may be out of the question for me.

Any suggestions as to an alternative to the equipment practicing method?

Thanks
Anthony[/quote]

Cross

Nicely done on your passing this exam. Congrats and best to you on your future exams of Cisco

SoCo4Fun

Congrats!

I have my test on the 17th....I'm getting nervous.....;)

Also for those of you looking for equipment you can check out ebay, just be smart about what you bid on. Its pretty obvious which ones are scams. Get ones that are guaranteed not DOA.

heretohelpwithccna

Congratulations

Dokudorf

Congrats on passin the exam..hopefully i can say the same in the next couple of weeks.

The thing that made me fail the first time was that all i had was hands-on experience with the cisco stuff and wasn't familiar with the limitations of the simulator (from what i saw the simulator on the test and the simulator given wit hthe cisco text's are one in the same).

Anyhow, because i had done the cisco labs using the service password-encryption command to encrypt a priv EXEC mode password i was thrown for a loop when i was asked to do as much and didn't have access to the command i was looking for. Had i spent more time on the simulator before taking the test i would have passed the exam.

Failed by 6 points first time i took it and had a 43% in the cisco IOS section because of questions like the one above. Basically i was familiar with too many of the commands and didn't know the workarounds to stuff because i assumed it was 'just like a real router,' but it wasn't. One question or workaround would have gotten me a passing grade every time i've taken the test so far (4x now..

)

Anyhow..grats on getting yer cert!