Hard to Retain?

ohmiharu

I have a hard time retaining everything that I have learn from studying CCNA. I have looked at threads & websites to help motivate myself. And also I don't want to take the test repeatedly like I did with Security+. Took me 3 times to fail it (575, 670, 720 *I cried for 2 days on that test lol failed by 30 points*) , and on the 4th time to pass it. I have Odom's books, I highlighted everything that I felt was important too. I have watched most of CBT Nuggets with Jeremy (He's very entertaining, and good explaining) instead of Emilio Valdez (I will unconsciously fall asleep on the video when he's teaching...), I've watched a couple DanCourses on youtube; & right now I'm watching the free INE CCNA videos. I will try to tell you the best way I can about myself .. I am a visual learner & a do-er . I rather do things hands on. I think my problem with reading is I don't know what in the world is on the test for sure. It's really frustrating because I have been on this for 3 months & I really would like to pass it this month or beginning of next month. Am I out of luck? I should I go over what is related to Security+ first and then going over what I have the most trouble with? I guess my overall problem is where to start with first.

NotHackingYou

Lab, lab, lab.

Illumanati

Join the club. I am in the same boat. I don't want to sound as if I am speaking at you at all in the process of saying this and I will say this only... you don't have any direction AND the material doesn't stick(the result) using the books made by "the author" (current) of cisco "press" material. I found this mint copy of the most previous authors from the material and found Steve McQuerry much more palatable especially his ICND2 book. THe ICND1 book is long and I have it on pdf but the ICND 2 book is surprisingly only 300 pages and it tells you exactly what you need to know which is the malady you are suffering from with the "current author" of "Cisco press" who is Odom. Just my 2 cents but things are not jelling because you dont have the correct materials that will allow the concepts to really stick in your brain. I know, I suffered from this since the CCNAs were conceived but somehow I skipped McQuerry due to taking Cisco Academy full 4 courses before it was broken up into ICND1 and ICND2 or even Intro and Icnd2 prioir to that. Don'y worry, the problem is NOT with you but rather the infinite numbers of authors and materials out there. For example, the current networking academy stuff has introduced so much fluff that it is downright confusing and students are overwhelmed due to being overloaded with superfluous material not necessary to really MASTER the technology(ies). I kidd you not and like I said, try the previous authors both dont go beyond copyright 2008 because then you might miss some things but overall, I think too many current students are peer pressured into using the latest "cert guide" material(Odom) thinking the older stuff will have things missing and in fact and it turn out that the older authors are better at explaining(McQuerry) and you're not missing anything at all or its extremely negligible!!

Roguetadhg

Labbing tends to help to get your feet wet about how the commands work and get you introduced to the technology.

From my experince of self-reflection (A lot of it) I think the material tends to sink in after you start going outside of the lab. Once you start saying... "If I do this..." or "I wonder what would happen if I..." You're starting the process of melding the theory and practical together.

I do agree with Illumanati about the fluff. There's a lot of it when you get down to it. Most of the information can be summarized into bullet points which drastically shrink the material down. The point here is that you've been able to Read, Understand, and then been able to take the info that seems important and torch that fluff to a simple, beautiful sentence. For example For STP (It's the only thing on the top of my head): "Lower MAC address; Higher Priority" Although, there's quite a bit of theory and wording that goes into that small sentence.

I tend to think of a white board, or a copy of the example topology. I then think about the long long explanations, and circle the high points... or Highlight. Highlighting and scribbling is what makes learning easier for me.

It takes a while for me to get through the first read. Especially in larger books! Mostly Because I take my time. I lab as I go. I take notes. I use OneNote to type down notes. I also use OneNote to re-create the labs. There's a lot of time and effort into learning the first time. It's mainly to make sure that I've not only been able to catch what the author has been trying to throw at me - but in an attempt to master the information.

I will ALWAYS use outside resources - Youtube, Google, Forums to say the least. If I have trouble understanding it, I'll go to these places and look, read. There's quite a bit of frustration too.

Just keep your head up. Keep working at it. You're already a heck of a step closer by learning this material

sratakhin

I didn't retain all the material I learnt from studying for CCNA. Of course, I use some of it at work amd I know much more than what's necessary for CCNA, but I never work with, for example, setting up routing protocols. I know concepts well and after reading about, let's say RIP, I can set it up, but there is no way I can remember all the little details (like timers) without looking them up.

Roguetadhg

I don't think he passed the test

I think he's asking "How can I keep the knowledge of a 900 page book in my head"

rowelld

It's difficult to retain everything from the text books. My recommendation is to know the concepts. Then reinforce your knowledge with a lot of labbing. If there's information you need to memorize, I use an app such as Mental Case.

Mrock4

Time, Practice, Repetition..and experience! These will all contribute to you NEVER forgetting certain things.

Although production experience is ideal, labbing counts too.

Roguetadhg

Can you come with me on a few interviews, Mrock4? I'd like to say "Labbing counts as experience." :P

Mrock4

I've taken part in an ungodly amount of interviews, and conducted many myself- while I wouldn't hire a senior engineer who said he had lab experience as his sole form of experience- I WOULD (and have) absolutely hired junior engineers who have done nothing more than play with GNS3 a good deal. I'd prefer someone who's learned the ropes in a lab environment over someone who's got 3 years of production experience but doesn't care to really delve into the details. All things equal, production experience wins most often, but I certainly wouldn't rule someone out if they labbed regularly.

I guess to be clear, I value candidates who are thristy for knowledge, so to speak- I don't want people who are content with never improving themselves. That's not saying they're dumb, or bad people or anything..but actions do speak louder than words, and seeking out education on your own is worth a lot, at least in my opinion!

But, on a serious note, I'd happily come to your interview (see attached image) and chime in when necessary


Edit: as a final note, I got sidetracked- when I said experience counts originally, I meant towards not forgetting certain concepts.

lsud00d

Mrock4 wrote: »

(see attached image)

I lol'd

Illumanati

Roguetadhg wrote: »

It takes a while for me to get through the first read. Especially in larger books! Mostly Because I take my time. I lab as I go. I take notes. I use OneNote to type down notes. I also use OneNote to re-create the labs. There's a lot of time and effort into learning the first time. It's mainly to make sure that I've not only been able to catch what the author has been trying to throw at me - but in an attempt to master the information.

I will ALWAYS use outside resources - Youtube, Google, Forums to say the least. If I have trouble understanding it, I'll go to these places and look, read. There's quite a bit of frustration too.

Just keep your head up. Keep working at it. You're already a heck of a step closer by learning this material

I liked twhat this person is trying to convey as being extremely important and vital especially the highlighted stuff for day to day usefulness and for immediate use. What I learned is learning takes time and certain strategies like highlighting and notetaking and for us network/computer guys, labbing is so crucial. But it's the soft learning like taking your time and continuing the tried and true methods of highlighting and notetaking! It really can add wind to our sails assuming we are trying to sail and not sit on the sidelines.

palit

I don't understand one thing about Labs.If i know how to configure I know some specific set of rules or steps to configure something and I can't go wrong if i stick to them.But in the CCNA exams they expect you to interpret the output and troubleshoot.I guess this interpretation comes easy to a person who has got some hands on in the production environment.I feel no labbing can help for some specific kind of output which you get to see only when you have an experience in the production env.

Roguetadhg

Troubleshooting:

As far as interpret and troubleshooting... After you'v'e labbed for a while you should've gathered enough knowledge about what's going on with the devices to be able to 'expect' things. There's also "Methodolodies" for doing troubleshooting. Some persons like to go from the OSI layer top (7) to bottom (1), others bottom (1) from top (7), others will 'play it by ear' after they've been at a job and seen a repeating problem!

Troubleshooting is just a fancy way to narrow down the problem to a key spot. If you've ever worked on a computer, and got it back up and running by testing components and running tests - that's a form a troubleshooting. With networking It just may be on a larger scale with multiple persons involved. But the premise is still there.

So how do you get better at troubleshooting? Troubleshooting. Problems, errors, it may be a "I forgot to turn on the interface" or you may have forgotten to assign a clock rate to the DCE interface. Basically any problems you have with a lab will make you a better troubleshooter somehow.

When it comes down to material and labs to help troubleshoot problems you've never seen: I don't know any that's organic, or dynamic. After you've done them once, it's easy to just jump right on the problem and fix it - without any troubleshooting. That defeats the purpose.

Expectations:

You should have enough knowledge about what you're trying to fix that you can do the appropriate show commands and know what the output means. Don't expect to memorize the output. I think that's the bad way to view this - Just get comfortable with the interface, get to form "Expectations" of what will happen when you type in a command, instead of just going off a lab book.

ie: I expect, through my time with Linux and DOS, that typing in... echo Hello World... A new line will be formed, no prompt and the words "Hello World" will be on that line. I wouldn't have been able to form that expectation without doing something like that at one point. My real-life lab could've said "echo I love shoes".


Being able to narrow down a large problem, to then find the actual underlying cause is the marriage between Troubleshooting and Expectations. Do a show ip interface brief on a new router. You can tell is the connections for that router are working or not working just by using that one screen.

This is the point of labbing so much. You'll forget to type something in, at some point, which will make you troubleshoot the problem!

ohmiharu

Thanks everyone's who's posted ! I'm taking great consideration of everyone's posts !

Roguetadhg wrote: »

Labbing tends to help to get your feet wet about how the commands work and get you introduced to the technology.

From my experince of self-reflection (A lot of it) I think the material tends to sink in after you start going outside of the lab. Once you start saying... "If I do this..." or "I wonder what would happen if I..." You're starting the process of melding the theory and practical together.

I do agree with Illumanati about the fluff. There's a lot of it when you get down to it. Most of the information can be summarized into bullet points which drastically shrink the material down. The point here is that you've been able to Read, Understand, and then been able to take the info that seems important and torch that fluff to a simple, beautiful sentence. For example For STP (It's the only thing on the top of my head): "Lower MAC address; Higher Priority" Although, there's quite a bit of theory and wording that goes into that small sentence.

I tend to think of a white board, or a copy of the example topology. I then think about the long long explanations, and circle the high points... or Highlight. Highlighting and scribbling is what makes learning easier for me.

It takes a while for me to get through the first read. Especially in larger books! Mostly Because I take my time. I lab as I go. I take notes. I use OneNote to type down notes. I also use OneNote to re-create the labs. There's a lot of time and effort into learning the first time. It's mainly to make sure that I've not only been able to catch what the author has been trying to throw at me - but in an attempt to master the information.

I will ALWAYS use outside resources - Youtube, Google, Forums to say the least. If I have trouble understanding it, I'll go to these places and look, read. There's quite a bit of frustration too.

Just keep your head up. Keep working at it. You're already a heck of a step closer by learning this material

Yes so far, even though I'm reading this book & watching a video for each section. I'm going through the labs in the book....well mimicking them on Packet Tracer to memorize the commands at least to help me get started with them. Most likely I will probably go watch the CBT nuggets with Jeremy again and copy what he does since the first time I was watching him with no equipment thinking , "How in the world am I going to do this with NO equipment !?" lol

ohmiharu

Illumanati wrote: »

I liked twhat this person is trying to convey as being extremely important and vital especially the highlighted stuff for day to day usefulness and for immediate use. What I learned is learning takes time and certain strategies like highlighting and notetaking and for us network/computer guys, labbing is so crucial. But it's the soft learning like taking your time and continuing the tried and true methods of highlighting and notetaking! It really can add wind to our sails assuming we are trying to sail and not sit on the sidelines.

I think my problem is that I don't know what is important for the CCNA, although learning more never hurts. I've looked at the objectives and Odom's book & I'm just confused. He points out this is a key topic for the tables and graphs , which seems kind of wrong on his case , even though he's helping. I'm just like what about every thing else you are explaining? Are they also key topics for the exam?

By the way, I'm a girl . lol

Roguetadhg

As long as you put some thought into why you're using the commands, you'll absorb the commands. If you do what I did, often, and Zombie type your way through the labs, you probably won't remember anything you've done. I often times went through the motions of typing out the Line Con/Vty/Aux configurations just because I didn't care anymore :P

As far as objectives go, you should go over the objectives from cisco.com. They'll provide you a list of what you should be able to do and what to know. Go through each objective, and check them off as you go.

Some persons even take notes focused on those objective lists for some exams. Which is fine, especially if you want to study for the exam.

We need more women! Invite your friends to be tech geeks!

Illumanati

ohmiharu wrote: »

I guess my overall problem is where to start with first.

first things first..

grrr??? grrr??! grrr?!! grrrl!!!!

hey there, newly discovered gurly giirl.. tee hee now to ANSWER your question, I would get a hold of CCENT dummies and then lab out what you have already been labbing out and then do a practice exam. Then, pick up a ICND2 book by Steven Mcquerry and lab some of those and take iCND2 voila, you're ccna. merci beau coup!

Roguetadhg

You know a little french, Illumanati?

ohmiharu

So far typing the commands of the basic configuration and SSH configuration has stuck on me. Just typing the service password-encryption is somewhat frustrating. I keep trying to put the line in the command and it won't work? "show running-config | begin line vty" I just gave up and skipped lol. Then went on to subnetting, which was pretty fun and exciting when i got the hang of it.

Haha I'm trying to get a few women into the field. Even my mother had certifications (They expired) and she knows a lot more than I do sometimes !

& @Illumanati I'll keep that in mind, after the holidays are over with. Still have a couple of presents lefts...

Illumanati

Roguetadhg wrote: »

You know a little french, Illumanati?

haha no, just a few beautiful words, my man.

ohmiharu that Sec + exp will help in your ccna study?

ohmiharu

My father claims so, but in my honest opinion. No it doesn't. It more scratches the surface of certain topics like STP, PPP, NAT, ACL, & few others. If the CCNA was just multiple choice I'd probably past on second try honestly. But because you have to learn and put the effort into commands, math, and etc...you have to understand these things for the test.

Illumanati

ohmiharu wrote: »

My father claims so, but in my honest opinion. No it doesn't. It more scratches the surface of certain topics like STP, PPP, NAT, ACL, & few others. If the CCNA was just multiple choice I'd probably past on second try honestly. But because you have to learn and put the effort into commands, math, and etc...you have to understand these things for the test.

Wow, you know a lot grrrrrr. Lets talk more in a side bar discussion about preparing to pass this exam because I just picked up a mint copy of Steve McQuerry's ICND2 book which has those topics you mentioned and then some. I think it could really help because I too am ready and prepared for a multiple guess exam especially for ICND1but need to do the commands. hah! grrr I know subnetting but need to be exam ready with practice question. PM me.

Roguetadhg

Sounds like you already know more than what you're putting on, ohmiharu.

ohmiharu

Roguetadhg I would say I know more of the definition of it. Certain things I know what it does. But going in depth in the books, I'm like what ?! This is not clicking in. Plus seeing what's on the test from the cisco site and hearing about it. That's basically what I pretty much summed up.

goldenlight

I am a visual learner as well. This is what I do to retain stuff.


I find cutting and pasting Pictures From E books helps me understand a concept. This is the main reason I take notes using my computer. I recommend Microsoft One Note or similar program.

Labbing with a simulator helps. Usually when I am done with a lab assignment, I just play with some of the command. I fine using the "?" in the command line has helped me remember many commands.

Reading the Material Twice.

Watching the INE Videos. Definitely will use videos to supplement learning going forward.


MOst important: If you find you can't focus on a particular topic, take a 15 minute break. If its late at night and you have to be at work the next morning, go over the material the next night. And if you still can't focus, taking a 3-4 day break from studying. Remember you are not on a Time line. This is self Paced Course. Let the concepts soak into the Brain:)

ohmiharu

Well I am watching INE videos too , do you think CBT nuggets will work also ? Yea, I have also played around with commands after each assignment. So far its getting better slowly. What books do you have goldenlight?

I try not to take a few day break because then I feel like I'll forget everything (I need to stop thinking negative)

networker050184

It sounds like you are trying to use too much material to me. Grab a book and your lab, sit down and have at it until it sticks. Using all these different videos and sources will only serve to confuse the matter at this point IMO.

petedude

I think one of the things that is tough about prepping for Cisco exams in memorizing odd minutiae, like which wires are different between crossover and Ethernet cables. Lab all you want to get the day-to-day practical stuff, but the little things require sheer memorization.

ohmiharu

Thanks everyone ! Taking consideration of everyone's advice. Someone on skype made a group so we can help each other with questions if we need to ask. I'm taking it slow... Someone in this community is telling everyone in the group that I'm a ***** cause "I'm holding stuff in, when I know everything and want everyone to tell me the answer" Which is not true. I had a problem with retaining stuff from the books and videos. I was feeling too overwhelmed. At max I knew the OSI model VERY well, I CAN admit that. I never didn't say I DO NOT know anything whatsoever. Yes I had definitions and a brief explanations for certain things like ACL, STP, and a couple more from doing security+. BUT this is networking. If everything was multiple choice on this test i wouldn't ask questions honestly. But overall with my studying, I am rereading the book ICND1 from odom over. From the break from all this holiday mess, I actually got half of SUBNETTING ! I am so excited. I felt like a little kid in the candy store to be honest . Math is not my strongest subject ! <--- That would be a public announcement if I could lol. Test is going to be attempted on January 24th !!! *takes deep breath very...slowly*

docrice

I'll add my two cents in... If you want to learn this stuff, get real equipment (2950 switches and 1721 or 831 routers on eBay are dirt cheap) and make it part of your home network environment that you're dependent on. That way you'll have a major incentive to work through the problem if something gets mis-configured. It's a good place to see how things break without causing issues in a production / formal business environments.

Lab simulators are nice, but there's no substitute for inserting a console cable, knowing how to set up a terminal emulator on your management station, TFTPing to / from an IOS image to the device, being stuck in ROMMON, seeing the interface LEDs turn from amber to green (or vice versa), and so on.

If you're starting from zero networking knowledge, no one expects you to learn CCNA-level material in just a few months. If you don't get it, that's okay. Many networking concepts are rather abstract at first and there's a learning curve involved, but once you make it over that first hill, it starts becoming more intuitive.

I know many people try to rush through the material so they can get to / pass the exam, but take the time to learn the material. Real-world networks are much more complicated and many times a bigger mess than what Cisco books might lead you to believe.