Need a daily study plan for ICND1

salfordred

I am seriously hoping there may be somebody here who can help me.

I need to try and get my ICDN1 within the next 1-2 months (in a nutshell...serious amount of pressure from work which could mean losing my job).. I have a reasonable amount of study... but with absolutely no structure at all. I have been in a network admin role for a number of years but never had any pressure to get a qualification... No I have to get this in order to continue the job I've done for some time. I have a problem with exams which I guess is the main factor here... but if I can be 100% confident in my own ability.. I would stand a better chance.

I have training guides from Global Knowledge, along with iphone apps and anything available on the the net.

I've ran through Cisco practice tests and tend to be averaging around 65%... and always seem to mess up on the same areas... but I'd much prefer to do this as if I have no knowledge to make sure I have all angles covered.

So... what I need is a daily breakdown of how I can achieve this.. I guess broken down by topic and how long each should take.

Does anybody have anything like this that has got them through the process ?

I have seen breakdowns of topics throughout ICND1... but never anybody's personal study plan.

Please help me on this one... I need to pass this very soon.

Thank you in advance.

mikka1984

1-2 months is very doable mate, I would highly recommend getting Wendell's ICND1 book and just run through it. If you have experience it should be a lot easier for you to get your cert. When I was doing mine (although i went for the full CCNA) I went through the book chapter by chapter. The Do I know this already quiz in the beginning are very good, plus you get a free Boson exam with it to test yourself in the end. Do you have your own lab at home? You can learn all practical side of routing using GNS3, but i would recommend getting a cat2950 to do your switching. Think you should be alright with just one switch since ICND1 does not cover STP. Let us know what your budget/experience/home setup is, will be easier to help out. I would highly advise to do 2/1 hours theory/lab per day. Im doing my CCNP route atm and i study at least 4 hours on work days and up to 10 hours on the weekend, so squeeze as much studying time as you can.

alan2308

Wendell Odom's book or Todd Lammle's book (Google books had previews of both, see who's writing style you prefer).

It's hard to devise a study plan at the very beginning because there's no telling how long it's going to take to get comfortable with each topic. It wouldn't make sense to keep pounding a chapter you already know rather than devoting that time to one you don't know. My plan is always to just take it one chapter at a time and stay there until I'm comfortable with everything in it.

WillTech105

salfordred,

Being that you already have network expierience thats already something going for you.

ICND1 I found is an easy test for people -- ICND2 I found much more difficult.

I used the Sybex Book along with CBTNuggets. Jeremy is great on CBT so you'll really enjoy the videos and its worth it.

Those are the 2 study materials I used, hammered the book, worked on a practice lab (try to create scenarios) and create a quick "****-sheet" guide for commands you see frequently and review this list.

After a while, it becomes second nature. PM me if you have any technical questions I can help out.

instant000

What works for me is to have a general idea of what I need to study, in order to be successful.

Depending on how difficult the material is to me (this is individualized), I then determine how fast I can go through it, I usually get between 50-100 pages a day, depending upon workload and difficulty of the material.

With most materials, there are end-of-chapter tests throughout the material. If you have really good material, it includes labs, also. I record my performance on these end of chapter tests/labs.

Then, I also look for any key notes/concepts/glossary terms, and I place them into flash cards.

One thing I really like to do is to attempt the end of chapter labs/tests at least three times, reviewing the ones I errored on, and figuring out *why* I errored on them. Also, I review the chapter concepts.

This is an example, of how I would review a 3 chapter book

PHASE 1: INITIAL RUN-THROUGH

Chapter 1:
Read Chapter
Read Chapter Summary
Do Chapter Lab
Do Chapter Test
Reconcile missed test questions

Chapter 2:
Read Chapter
Read Chapter Summary
Do Chapter Lab
Do Chapter Test
Reconcile missed test questions

Chapter 3:
Read Chapter
Read Chapter Summary
Do Chapter Lab
Do Chapter Test
Reconcile missed test questions

That was my first run through, and I record my results:
1: 11/20
2: 15/20
3: 8/20

PHASE 2: REVIEW PHASE

Now, I go back, and prepare to do review.
Chapter 1:
Review chapter summary
Review missed questions
Review notes and flash cards

Chapter 2:
Review chapter summary
Review missed questions
Review notes and flash cards

Chapter 3:
Review chapter summary
Review missed questions
Review notes and flash cards

Then, I go through, and attempt the end-of-chapter tests again
1: 16/20
2: 18/20
3: 15/20

PHASE 3:
(I basically do all of phase 2 again), and do the end-of-chapter tests again to close out the phase
1: 20/20
2: 20/20
3: 19/20

PHASE 4:
This is the final test preparation phase

1. Read end of book summary
2. Review notes and cards from all chapters
3. Do end of book test: 33/40
4. Reconcile missed questions
5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you can score perfectly on the practice test.

PHASE 5: (OPTIONAL)
Obtain additional material to test yourself against.
Perform the phase 4 steps against it.

This is the technique that I use, and it has worked without fail for me, for certification testing. The key for me is specifically reconciling the questions that you missed, as it reveals topics that you are not strong in, and need to work on, and you work to understand what the question is asking, and making sure that you understand what all of the answer choices are, so you can know for sure why one choice is correct, and also why the other choices are incorrect. (In many cases, you may get a question where one of the incorrect choices during practice, may be correct if they phrase the question differently on the exam, so it is important to not just know the answer to the question, but to understand all of the choices available to answer the question.)

I apologize for not giving a time frame, but you would have to set that yourself, based upon how quickly you were covering the material yourself.

One major warning I have about any test is making sure that you know the material well, so that you can finish the material easily, with time to spare.

I hope that this helps you!