Failed CCNA twice

ccnahelpme

Hey all,

Failed my ccna for the second time today. Scored 732 today, last week 743. I've been using Lammle's book, Boson's practice exams, and Boson's network simulator. Any advice on how to get over this hump? Read the book 3 times, did the exams twice, practiced with the Net sim but I feel it's limited, and read the materials from this forum (the lab manuals that people have out for free). I know the best solution is to get the actual equipment but my budget is limited and would like to pass my third time around without pouring anymore money into this test. I heard packet tracers are very good. Anyone kind of enough to share their packet tracers or other resources? Any suggestions on how I should approach it?

Regards,

Jon

mikej412

What's your networking experience.

Todd's book is GREAT for subnetting for a noob -- and it's a fun read. But it's good as an only source for someone with Cisco Experience who just needs a quick refresher and a hint of the things they don't work with on a day to day basis that they may need more study on.

Odom's CCNA Certification Library is the set of books that could be a "single source" of study -- but even then a bunch of us will still recommend Todd's book as a 2nd source. If you're a networking noob and haven't read Odom's CCNA books your probably lacking a bunch of information.

That said -- your scores aren't THAT bad. Some people do need help getting over the HUMP -- and that's where a bunch of people have used Chris Bryant's CCNA Study Guide with good results. I haven't seen his site lately, but don't be put off if it reads like an Infomercial. Chris is the instructor on the TrainSignal Videos. His website is CCNA CCNP Cisco Security Certification Exam, CCNA Boot Camp CBT

If you post the breakdown by sections from your score sheet we may be able to offer a few more idea. How was your subnetting? Did you do practice questions on subnettingquestions.com - Free Subnetting Questions and Answers Randomly Generated Online

The labs in NetSim (and the exercises in Todd's book) should be enough to get by for the CCNA exam lab tasks, so I'd be surprised if your score report shows issues in the implement topics..... but it could still be related to some of the "trivia" you missed by not reading Odom.

Other option is to break the exam into the ICND1 and ICND2 two exam option so you can focus more on the individual parts -- plus they're only 1/2 the cost each of the single CCNA exam (just in case).