Passed CCNA today (includes resources used)
capy_12090
Member Posts: 36 ■■□□□□□□□□
in CCNA & CCENT
Score was 940/1000.
Resources used (in the approximate order that I used them):
CCNA Exam Prep (Exam 640-802), Second Edition
By Jeremy Cioara; David Minutella; Heather Stevenson:
This book was pretty good, but it teaches the terrible (I think) binary AND method of subnetting. When I was done with this book, I wondered how I would finish the exam on time.
CCNA Practice Questions (Exam 640-802), Third Edition
By Jeremy Cioara - CCIE No. 11727:
Lots of practice questions, organized by topic. I found this book very helpful. Again, I was left wondering how I would finish the real exam on time due to the binary AND method of subnetting that was promoted.
TechExams.com TechNotes:
I was hoping these TechNotes would be as comprehensive as some of the CompTIA ones, but alas they are not. Oh well, they're free.
Bootcamp:
I won't say whose bootcamp, but I was literally sickened that the instructor promoted the use of braindumps. However, the guy really knew his stuff (he coauthored one of the Sybex books) and this class was where I learned the "block size" method of subnetting. Almost immediately, I was able to do subnetting in vastly less time.
If my company hadn't paid for me to go to this bootcamp, I might have walked out and reported him to Cisco for promoting braindumps. It's sad, because the instructor was a CCNP with many years of experience. He implied that the CCNA wasn't a fair exam and joked about the NDA. It's hard to believe that he would jeopardize his own certs by encouraging others to break the NDA.
Transcender Practice Exam:
Largely out of scope questions, but some good ones also. It's a toss up whether this one was worth the money.
CCNA Quick Reference Sheets:
By Eric Rivard; Jim Doherty
Useless fluff from Cisco Press. I didn't even finish this one as I didn't like the font and it was a waste of my time.
CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide: Exam 640-802:
By Todd Lammle
Great book, includes a CD copy of the book also. I love the free sample multimedia where he says about three times, "If you don't know how to subnet like this *snaps fingers*, you will fail the exam." That really got me motivated.
[url]www.subnettingquestions.com:[/url]
Great, great, great. It's free and great. Too bad it now includes banner ads. :P
PrepLogic Practice Exam:
Annoyingly out of scope, like the Transcender exam, but the sims are even more annoying. Pretty much every sim is unrealistic or just plain out of scope (configure an ISDN dialing list... huh?). Still, I did learn a few things.
Dynamips, Boson, Dynagen, GNS3:
This may sound crazy, but I literally got GNS3 working on my computer the night before the exam, and I'm not sure I would have passed without it. It would have been interesting, to say the least.
I had been using a single instance of Dynamips previously, then I upgraded to Dynamips plus Dynagen, but I was finding Dynagen too much of a pain to be worth running, so I was mostly just running a single 7200 emulation for learning purposes. GNS3 made it so easy to set up routers that I decided to run through a bunch of Boson simulations on my Dynamips setup the night before the exam. Again, this was a huge help and I don't know if I could have done the exam configs without this extra practice.
Resources used (in the approximate order that I used them):
CCNA Exam Prep (Exam 640-802), Second Edition
By Jeremy Cioara; David Minutella; Heather Stevenson:
This book was pretty good, but it teaches the terrible (I think) binary AND method of subnetting. When I was done with this book, I wondered how I would finish the exam on time.
CCNA Practice Questions (Exam 640-802), Third Edition
By Jeremy Cioara - CCIE No. 11727:
Lots of practice questions, organized by topic. I found this book very helpful. Again, I was left wondering how I would finish the real exam on time due to the binary AND method of subnetting that was promoted.
TechExams.com TechNotes:
I was hoping these TechNotes would be as comprehensive as some of the CompTIA ones, but alas they are not. Oh well, they're free.
Bootcamp:
I won't say whose bootcamp, but I was literally sickened that the instructor promoted the use of braindumps. However, the guy really knew his stuff (he coauthored one of the Sybex books) and this class was where I learned the "block size" method of subnetting. Almost immediately, I was able to do subnetting in vastly less time.
If my company hadn't paid for me to go to this bootcamp, I might have walked out and reported him to Cisco for promoting braindumps. It's sad, because the instructor was a CCNP with many years of experience. He implied that the CCNA wasn't a fair exam and joked about the NDA. It's hard to believe that he would jeopardize his own certs by encouraging others to break the NDA.
Transcender Practice Exam:
Largely out of scope questions, but some good ones also. It's a toss up whether this one was worth the money.
CCNA Quick Reference Sheets:
By Eric Rivard; Jim Doherty
Useless fluff from Cisco Press. I didn't even finish this one as I didn't like the font and it was a waste of my time.
CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide: Exam 640-802:
By Todd Lammle
Great book, includes a CD copy of the book also. I love the free sample multimedia where he says about three times, "If you don't know how to subnet like this *snaps fingers*, you will fail the exam." That really got me motivated.
[url]www.subnettingquestions.com:[/url]
Great, great, great. It's free and great. Too bad it now includes banner ads. :P
PrepLogic Practice Exam:
Annoyingly out of scope, like the Transcender exam, but the sims are even more annoying. Pretty much every sim is unrealistic or just plain out of scope (configure an ISDN dialing list... huh?). Still, I did learn a few things.
Dynamips, Boson, Dynagen, GNS3:
This may sound crazy, but I literally got GNS3 working on my computer the night before the exam, and I'm not sure I would have passed without it. It would have been interesting, to say the least.
I had been using a single instance of Dynamips previously, then I upgraded to Dynamips plus Dynagen, but I was finding Dynagen too much of a pain to be worth running, so I was mostly just running a single 7200 emulation for learning purposes. GNS3 made it so easy to set up routers that I decided to run through a bunch of Boson simulations on my Dynamips setup the night before the exam. Again, this was a huge help and I don't know if I could have done the exam configs without this extra practice.
Comments
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networker050184
Mod Posts: 11,962 Mod
Congrats on the pass!An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made. -
ConstantlyLearning
Member Posts: 445
well done man."There are 3 types of people in this world, those who can count and those who can't" -
Daniel333
Member Posts: 2,077 ■■■■■■□□□□
I think cheating is standard in those bootcamps, it really is. Most of them are just not so honest about it. But they do work the questions and answers from the exams into their lectures.-Daniel
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remyforbes777
Member Posts: 499
Congratulations. Great score.Remington Forbes
www.blacksintechnology.net -
Panzer919
Member Posts: 462
Salty you beat my score by 6points
CONGRATZ!! Cisco Brat Blog
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scorphe
Member Posts: 18 ■□□□□□□□□□
congrats on the pass...really put it on to the fullest...!wish the best...what are you up to now?take it or leave it...!
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capy_12090
Member Posts: 36 ■■□□□□□□□□
scorphe wrote:congrats on the pass...really put it on to the fullest...!wish the best...what are you up to now?
I'm thinking about the CCNP, but maybe a little break first. -
Slowhand
Mod Posts: 5,161 Mod
Congratulations on the pass. From the looks of your study-material for this exam, you should have no problem with the CCNP tests, if you dig into them as seriously. Good luck!
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