Whew... That was Hard!!!

bardsleyb

Okay, it may be a bit odd to post about the mastering of one single topic in the CCENT or CCNA study guides, but here it goes! I have finally got subnetting down to where I can kind of do some problems in my head! I never thought I would get this topic down, and from the way others have said they struggled, I see why. It was certainly interesting to study, but I would say that mainly I was able to learn it from Chris Bryant best. With something like this I find that training videos that can show me step by step how it's done works best for me. I am answering the questions on TE here and on subnettingquestions.com. Very good resources for me to get random questions generated and test my answers afterwards. This is especially good for me to know that I am doing well on this topic since my CCENT exam is in 5 days! I will of course let everybody know how it goes. I really want to pass this thing before I come home from the desert deployment I am on now. I'll be home in less than a month hopefully and I am lucky to have a full education center to test at. It is interesting to me that on Cisco's website, Subnetting is not mentioned ONCE on the testing topics for ICND1.... Hmmm... Have a great day everybody!!


On another side note I notice that the "Morale Network" that we use here has a class C address (192.168.X.X) but a /23 subnet mask.... I am sure this is way over my head right now but what the frak? You can borrow network bits too? I have always seen it go just one way borrowing host bits... I guess it shows how much more I have to learn in networking! Makes no sense to me at all.

boredgamelad

You can indeed borrow bits from the network portion and you will learn more about it when you get into ICND2. Best of luck on your exam!

draught

No wonder subnetting has not fully made sense in some areas so far. I have the ICND1 material down for the most part but if only I'd known this I'd have been less frustrated during the times where it hasn't made sense.

Xyro

I'm glad you mastered Subnetting! So many seem to have problems doing this. I've never had issues with it myself (at least so far on the ICND1 level) but I believe that's because I learned the steps visually.

Currently I'm reading Odom's Official Guide & I'm glad I already knew how to subnet because if I didn't... these chapters (what?? SEVEN chapters just for subnetting = completely unnecessary & ridiculous) would have left me disorientated, to say the least.

I don't think subnetting is difficult or even that most people have issues with Subnetting itself. I think the Subnetting learning materials are POOR. I'm not just basing this on Odom's book. I've looked at other printed works concerning Subnetting also. Most of them seem to make a mountain out of a molehill, yet skip crucial ideology. This results in readers (students) being left frustrated, bewildered, & feeling inadequate, IMHO.

boredgamelad

Gotta agree with Xyro. I've mentioned it before but I learned subnetting in 2 weeks of class time and haven't forgotten it since because we started from the ground up. Everyone wants to jump ahead to the methods that make it easy and fast and I think this leaves people confused. I feel like those methods are no good to someone who doesn't understand what's happening behind the scenes.