ICND1 Scheduled for Monday, January 16th

ciscoman2012

Well guys, I was planning on getting this done quite a bit sooner actually right when I returned from my study abroad semester in Germany.

I returned back to the USA on December 23rd and got so caught up with Christmas and just being home in the states that I put it off for a few weeks. Then classes started back up yesterday and I haven't had much time to really buckle down and study Cisco.

Luckily, I have pretty much everything done (Cisco studying wise) for the ICND1 besides just doing simple memorization like port numbers etc.

I want to make sure I get this certification out of the way as I'm in my final semester of Undergrad. and these Information System classes are starting to kick up the heat. I figure I won't have much school work to do going into the second week so I should try and get this ICND1 out of the way while I can. Monday, MLK day, seemed to be the best opportunity as I have no school or work (since I work at my college) and can easily study all day for the test.

So, in brief, I have the exam scheduled for Monday and hope it is the only time I have to take it. I feel fairly confident as I've went through all the Trainsignal videos, CBT Nugget videos, some INE videos, Odoms book as well as Lammale (however you spell his name).

Anyways, any last minute pointers on strictly things I should have memorized? I figure port numbers, OSI model, TCP/IP model and how they interact with each other are a must.

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Comments

angel.oa

ciscoman2012 wrote: »

Well guys, I was planning on getting this done quite a bit sooner actually right when I returned from my study abroad semester in Germany.

I returned back to the USA on December 23rd and got so caught up with Christmas and just being home in the states that I put it off for a few weeks. Then classes started back up yesterday and I haven't had much time to really buckle down and study Cisco.

Luckily, I have pretty much everything done (Cisco studying wise) for the ICND1 besides just doing simple memorization like port numbers etc.

I want to make sure I get this certification out of the way as I'm in my final semester of Undergrad. and these Information System classes are starting to kick up the heat. I figure I won't have much school work to do going into the second week so I should try and get this ICND1 out of the way while I can. Monday, MLK day, seemed to be the best opportunity as I have no school or work (since I work at my college) and can easily study all day for the test.

So, in brief, I have the exam scheduled for Monday and hope it is the only time I have to take it. I feel fairly confident as I've went through all the Trainsignal videos, CBT Nugget videos, some INE videos, Odoms book as well as Lammale (however you spell his name).

Anyways, any last minute pointers on strictly things I should have memorized? I figure port numbers, OSI model, TCP/IP model and how they interact with each other are a must.

definitely subnetting

martell1000

+1 on subnetting

you also should know your IOS commands...

if you are in an exam and run into a simulation dont rely on using the help function - because it might not work as it should... (happened to me twice)

anyway its good to be prepared to understand the whole thing and how the nuts and bolts come together in the cisco world. i know it sounds tough but if you passed your first cisco exam you will know what i mean. its not like writing an exam in school / college where 50% will give you a pass and you can gamble by not not covering some areas...

after all go and take it if you feel confident with the material if not better rescedule.

good luck!

thedude666

Make really sure you can subnet quickly!
You'll probably need it for some questions to determine if an answer is correct or not, if a host is in a subnet, if configuration is wrong, ...

I will be doing the exam soon. I which you good luck!

And Martell1000 makes a good point about exam at school in comparison with certfication exams! You really need to know things quite good, otherwhise you'll probably have a hard time!

Make sure you did some decent exercises on IOS. I did some example questions and sometimes the correct answer can be in a real small detail so be sure you are familiar with commands and their output.

ciscoman2012

Thanks for the tips guys and I would say I'm pretty good at subnetting.

With the help of the power of 2's table and the binary - decimal table I can do it quite fast. I'm still not able to do it in my head but I can do it on the whiteboard / paper with no problem at all.

ciscoman2012

..Only a few days...the nerves are starting to kick in but I think I'm ready.

jamesleecoleman

Lab hard and subnet hard!!!

The ICND1 isn't that hard. You can do it!

ciscoman2012

Well guys, the test is at 4PM EST today. In less than 3.5 hours I should know if I'll be moving onto ICND2 or studying even more for ICND1.

Let's hope it's the former!

Roguetadhg

take a day off before heading to ICND2 when you pass ICND1. After working so hard taking a day break is good to do. Just don't let it be longer than a day...

lac

Good luck with your test today!

MAC_Addy

Good luck on your test mate!

ciscoman2012

Well guys, just got back from the testing center. Was quite nervous when I clicked the last question for the computer to grade my exam. Low and behold I came out with a 950/1000. I'm pretty happy with that as I wasn't sure if I passed for some reason lol.

And there was not near as many subnetting questions as I anticipated on there. I think I over studied for the exam but that's ok as I feel very confident in the fundamentals now.

Here is the breakdown on my exam for those interested, and I think there were only 1 or 2 questions on WANs:

Describe the operation of data networks 100%
Implement a small switched network 100%
Implement an IP addressing scheme and IP services to meet network requirements for a small branch office 100%
Implement a small routed network 87%
Explain and select the appropriate administrative tasks required for a WLAN 100%
Identify security threats to a network and describe general methods to mitigate those threats 100%
Implement and verify WAN links 50%

kast1

Congrats on passing the test. You passed with a high score too. Awesome!

ciscoman2012

kast1 wrote: »

Congrats on passing the test. You passed with a high score too. Awesome!

Thanks man! I thought my score was going to be in the 85x range so when it was above 900 I was quite surprised.

I'm hoping that I can study the same as I did for the ICND1 on the ICND2 and pass it the first time as well. Only time will tell for that one though.

echo465

Congrats!

vinbuck

ciscoman2012 wrote: »

Thanks man! I thought my score was going to be in the 85x range so when it was above 900 I was quite surprised.

I'm hoping that I can study the same as I did for the ICND1 on the ICND2 and pass it the first time as well. Only time will tell for that one though.

Awesome...it's always nice to see a higher score than you expect. I thought I failed the CCNA composite the last time I took it, and I ended up getting a 932. Keep on trucking and get that CCNA!

ChickenNuggetz

Congrats on the pass!!!!!!!

Any words of wisdom for us who have yet to bite the bullet?

Good luck on the ICND2!

ciscoman2012

ChickenNuggetz wrote: »

Congrats on the pass!!!!!!!

Any words of wisdom for us who have yet to bite the bullet?

Good luck on the ICND2!

I would strongly suggest you know the fundamentals of how a packet travels through the network and especially know how switching tables are built. There were quite a few questions about what would happen in a given mac-address table and honestly I was expecting a bit harder questions. Most of them were simply just mac address tables and asking what the switch would do with a given source mac and destination mac..how it would handle that frame.

Regarding subnetting, there wasn't as much as I expected on there but there were one or two questions that simply asked for the broadcast address or the network number in which an IP address lies. I was looking forward to those questions as those were easy points.

Also, to add on what others have said, make sure you take the full 15 minutes to view the "tutorial" on how to take the test. During this time I had time to write down my Binary table (1- 128, 2 - 192, etc.) so that I could convert subnets quickly in addition to writing down the table of the powers of 2. I did the power of 2 up until the 16th power but I didn't use that many. I also wrote down the TCP and UDP ports to the best of my memory so that I wouldn't forget them later.

And make sure you know CDP and how to find out which devices are connected to what. Understand which interface is connected to the local device you're on and which interface is connected to the remote device. Lastly, make sure that you can simply read a configuration and explain on what is right/wrong about it.

I was expecting more questions like how to set up a router/switch to be able to Telnet..but instead they would ask me to view a configuration file and quiz me about what is right / wrong about it.

Forgot to say this so I'll make sure I say it..make sure you know how the OSI model translates to the TCP/IP model. I have a couple questions that simply asked how it translated for instance what is the Network Access Layer of TCP/IP in regards to the OSI? So Physical and Data Link. Those are easy points right there!

Hopefully this isn't giving away too much information as I feel I haven't went too specific into everything covered on the exam.

Good luck to all who have yet to take it!

alxx

Congratulations! hope I do as well

fsanyee

Congrats!!!
I want to schedule my ICND1 exam for next week.
Are the first and last subnets still unusable on the exam?

ciscoman2012

fsanyee wrote: »

Congrats!!!
I want to schedule my ICND1 exam for next week.
Are the first and last subnets still unusable on the exam?

Well it depends on if the question says "ip subnet zero" then the first/last subnet are usable or "no ip subnet zero" then the first/last subnet are not usable. I personally didn't have any questions asking for the subnets. I just had a few that asked for the network or broadcast IP address in a subnet as well as a few questions that wanted you to figure out what subnet mask was needed for 300 hosts and 30+ subnets, or something like that.

ciscoman2012

alxx wrote: »

Congratulations! hope I do as well

Me too as you've helped me out with some great links including the labbing links the the URLs for SubArea and Subnet192. Those helped me tremendously in my studies!

osJoe

Big congrats on the pass!

Thanks for all the info you've provided, I take the ICND1 tomorrow!