Passed CCENT today!!!

Well, it's done. I got 870 on the test, better than I thought I'd get. I did the Boson ICND1 exam that comes with the Cisco Press book a couple of days ago, and got 55%. That had me a little worried, but I thought I'd just go for it any way and I'm glad I did. I'm going to take a couple of months break from study now before I start studying for the ICND2 exam.

For those studying for the exam here's a few pieces of advice, I'm sure this has been said a hundred times already, but I'm going to say it again.

1) Subnetting, subnetting, subnetting!!! Know this so that you can do it in your sleep. Probably about a third of the exam is either directly or indirectly based on subnetting. Know how to work out if two different IP addresses are in the same subnet, how to work out how many hosts/subnets are on each subnet.

2) Show commands. Know how to get any piece of information the exam throws at you with show commands, and also different ways to show the same thing. You may get asked for something that can easily be found using a SHOW RUN command, only to find out that that command is not available in that question.

moderated

3) Time management. As mentioned above time is valuable and you need to keep an eye on the clock so that you don't get bogged down on one question.

Having said all that, it wasn't too bad. Fighting the nerves is probably the hardest part. If you put in the time to study you won't have any problem.

I can't speak highly enough of CBT Nuggets. This is where I got the bulk of my answers from. It's a little pricey but well worth it, much easier than trawling through a book the size of a brick. I did however come across a couple of questions that weren't explained in the videos but 95% of the information you need is in there. I also read the ICND1 book from Cisco Press which had a LOT of information in it, probably more than you will need for the exam. I found this a really hard read but I'm not into huge books anyway. By the time I get to the third chapter, I've forgotten what I read in the first one! The combination of these two should set you up to pass. I found that the video series explained things a lot simpler than the book, but there was more information in the book that wasn't in the video series. They compliment each other well.

I also used Routersim. There has been a lot of people bagging simulators on this site but for CCENT level, they're perfect. They may not be much good for more advanced certifications but for this one you can learn all you need to know and then some.

Well, that's my two cents worth. I'm off to the pub to celebrate...cheers, and good luck!!

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Comments

astorrs

Congrats on the pass! And enjoy the well deserved

dynamik

So you're going to be celebrating that on top of a holiday? Uh oh...

Congratulations!

You may want to edit #2 a bit. That might be getting a little too specific.

wbosher

#2 should be ok. Jeremy from CBT Nugget says pretty much the same thing. Anyway...gotta go...meant to be celebrating!

mikej412

Congratulations!

dynamik wrote:

You may want to edit #2 a bit. That might be getting a little too specific.

It seemed kind of obvious to me, but I guess it is a little to specific for the ICND1/CCENT

kevin31

Congratulations!

Good write up on materials thanks!

How long were you studying for?

wbosher

Studied on and off for about four months, but only really got stuck in about two months ago. I was lucky that my job gave me quite a bit of down time. I work on a helpdesk, so if nothing is broken then there's nothing for me to do. My boss let me study when there was nothing for me to do at work, probably a couple of hours a day. This should be enough for this exam but maybe not enough for ICND2.

deadzebra

I've got this exam on Tuesday 8th July. I also have been using the free Boson ICND1 exam that came with the study guide books.

This free exam has been the best learning tool for me, then there are the Cisco books, TestOut CCNA training DVD and Boson Netsim (CCNA) for the CLI/IOS.

I have been doing OK on the free exam. I'm understanding the different concepts - My worry is that this free exam is making me over confident. Real exams are usually much harder that free test ones.

How did you find the real exam compared to the book exam?
Would you say the questions are in the 'Same' design/layout format?
How many sims did you get?

Thank,
Nick.

mikej412

deadzebra wrote:

Would you say the questions are in the 'Same' design/layout format?

You can check out the design/layout for yourself in the Cisco Exam Tutorial

deadzebra wrote:

How many sims did you get?

Cisco Online Certification Support wrote:

As a matter of policy Cisco Systems, Inc. does not disclose the content of our certification exams. This includes exam pass marks, the exact number of questions on each exam, as well as the number of each type of question a candidate will see during their exam.

If anyone were to answer that, they would be violating the Cisco Career Certifications and Confidentiality Agreement and the Cisco Candidate Conduct Policy

It's probably a good idea to visit the NDA link now -- then you can use that 10-15 minutes you get to read (and accept) it before the exam to jot down any last minute notes and/or a subnetting chart on your scratch paper (or dry erase marker sheet).

shednik

Congrats on the pass!!

nel

Congrats man!

wbosher

I'd like to say thanks to everone on this site for all the information that helped me with this exam. These forums really helped.

To deadzebra, just go for it!!! I only got 55% on the Boson exam, and passed the real one. Fighting the nerves is the hardest part.

wbosher

Can anyone help me with a question regarding the actual certificate? I went to the Cisco Cert Tracking website https://i7lp.integral7.com/durango/do/login and it appears that I may need to pay an extra $15 to get my certificate delivered, but the web site is not really clear on this.

Is this fee just for ADDITIONAL certificates or for the initial one as well??

Cheers.

APA

Con-grat-choorations

see you in the CCNP forums

mikej412

Your first copy is free, and is sent via the US Postal Service.

In the past there was an option for expedited shipping (via DHL) that cost $15 -- and you could buy extra paper and electronic copies.

Not sure what the options are since integral7 took over management of the Cisco Certification website (and certificate shipment process).

wbosher

Thanks Mike, I'll wait patiently.

williehowe

Congrats,

I'm getting ready to take this cert. Where did you buy your voucher?

wbosher

I didn't have a voucher