Chris Bryant CCENT material worth it?

Hello,

I failed at my first attempt for the CCENT. I used CBT Nuggets and Todd Lammles study book. I am considering purchasing Chris Bryant's CCENT package so I get a fresh look at the material.
Chris Bryant claims to be so great but my question is, is the info going to be pretty much verbatim to CBT Nuggets, or will it teach me the concepts in a different way that will be useful for me passing the CCENT on my retake?

Thank you,

Mike

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dynamik

Nope, the material is similar to his Train Signal CBTs, but it's going to be slightly different from the CBT Nuggets. Written resources are typically more thorough than CBTs in general. You may also want to pick up Odom's books as well.

SephStorm

Yes its worth it.

mikej412

The Chris Bryant Advantage Study Guides are great for helping people get over the "hump."

CBT Nuggets and/or TrainSignal are a great additional sources for people who want a Video training option.

Todd's book is great for review -- and could be used by an experienced Cisco individual as their single study source if they just need to review the highlights for the exam.

Odom's CCNA Certification Library covers the foundation material you need to learn. If you don't already have a bunch of relevant Cisco experience and you skip Odom's books -- then you haven't laid a proper foundation for the rest of your Cisco Studies.

If you don't have Cisco work experience for most of the exam topics and didn't use the Odom books -- then you probably didn't even make it to the "hump" yet, so Chris's study guide may not help as much as it usually would.

mikejj83

Thanks for the input. Just purchased and downloaded. I'll give it full speed ahead this weekend and see!

tiersten

Uh oh. mikej412 and mikejj83

aldous

i'd second Odoms book. if you only have one cisco resorces for icdn1/2 then then the icnd1/2 library he does would be it. cbt nuggets are great to assist but i wouldn't use them solely, when i did my icnd1 & 2 i'd read through odom chapter then watch the appropriate vid and between the two you'll get a great idea of the material.

blackninja

Book/s you NEED: Odom's ICND1 (&ICMD2 for when you get to CCNA level) - all the theory you NEED, but hard to read.

These two are options, but I found them very very useful:

Watch CBT Nuggets as it's actually quite fun, Jeremy rocks

The Chris Bryant Advantage Study Guides are very easy to grasp and are explained without too much theory.

mikejj83

I do have Odom's book as well. It went pretty in depth. I am into the third section of Christ Bryant's material and so far it's pretty basic stuff. The sections just seem so short compared to Odom's book. Hopefully the combination of these materials will finish driving in what I need to know and I will pass the test on my second try.

thomAZ

I have both Odom's and Bryant's book and they are both very beneficial. Odom goes in great detail in all topics and Bryant's book helped fill in the gaps for me becuase he explains topics in a basic manner. Not as much detail but he kind of "dumbs" it down to help me better understand the info.

jmc012

mikejj83 wrote: »

I do have Odom's book as well. It went pretty in depth. I am into the third section of Christ Bryant's material and so far it's pretty basic stuff. The sections just seem so short compared to Odom's book. Hopefully the combination of these materials will finish driving in what I need to know and I will pass the test on my second try.

What I found is Chris's stuff covered what you need to know to pass the test without getting bogged down in too many details. I read Odom's books and then studied Chris's stuff, I thought it was a great combination.

mikejj83

I have now been using Odom's Cisco Press book and Chris Bryan't CCENT e-book. I am still getting KILLED with the Boson exam simulator that came with Odoms book. The questions are extremely complex. I have read on here before that the questions on there are a lot harder than the real thing, but also interpreted the posts to mean that if I can do the Boson exam sims good I will most likely pass the real thing... Looking for some feedback on that please.

mikej412

mikejj83 wrote: »

The questions are extremely complex.

What are you using to do the lab work?

Once you get past the basics and trivia, it's the hands on lab work that helps you understand the concepts -- along with the application.

The Boson questions are supposed to make you think and help you reinforce the material you've studied. Anyone can memorize an answer to a question. The trick is to understand what the question is asking for (and testing you on) and to know the answer(s). For the multiple choice questions you should then be able to recognize the correct answers from the possible answers they give.

Some questions will be easy -- if you see a few practice questions on the OSI Model or some Subnetting questions, take the hint that you probably need to know the OSI Model for the exam and that subnetting could be important. But since the OSI Model has 7 layers, it's probably best to know all 7, not the 2 or 3 the Boson test may ask about.

Some of the questions will be hard. Some of the possible answers won't make any sense -- which is good since some of them are wrong.

Some of the answers are correct -- but you've never seen them before. That's because an answer may be phrased differently and isn't word for word from the book -- but it's still a correct answer. Take the time and figure out why.

If you get a question wrong -- go review the topic, figure out why you didn't know the correct answer(s) and/or why you didn't understand what they were asking you to figure out.

If you pick the wrong answer to a question -- figure out what it was that caused you to pick it. If you didn't understand the question, go back and review that topic. If you were totally lost on the question, go reread that section of the book, watch the Nugget on that Topic, see what Todd had to say, or check out Chris's Study Guide.

You can always post questions about a topic -- but try to be as specific as possible about what is giving you problems. And mention your main study source or question source so other with the book(s) can check it out.

billscott92787

Chris Bryant's Train Signal Videos go hand in hand with the CCNA Exam Certification Library by Wendell Odom. They are an excellent additional resource to be used along with the book. I used the exam library and Train Signal to pass my CCNA. I used Train Signal and the exam cert guide to pass my BCMSN. I used Train Signal and exam cert guide to prepare for BSCI, let's see if I can add that to the passed list Monday