Passed ICND1 640-822! My thoughts on strategy and costs.

nopixel

I passed the CCENT 640-822 exam today and wanted to thank everyone who helped me answer questions on these forums. Reading your comments about passing, failing or otherwise just really helped me hang on to the networking "bug". I've come to really enjoy the material I've learned.

I wanted to share what study materials I used to pass ICND1 640-822. At this point the test will be changing in 9 days so I wouldn't recommend these exact materials - but I would recommend the authors I used - Wendell Odeom, CBT Nuggets (Jeremy) and Pearson Practice Tests (comes with WO's book).

Wendell Odom's cisco press book was the core of all my studying. I found a few errors that editors missed here and there, but overall WO's writing style is very easy to follow and understand. He also does a great job of giving you strategies for remembering the most difficult concepts and a great study plan to follow when you finish reading his book.

As a side note, for subnetting I used the magic number method (decimal only) and didn't use any binary conversion as part of the process. This was easiest for me to remember.

About half way through WO's book I started watching the CCENT video series on CBT Nuggets. Those videos helped me pass the test because I remember thinking back to Jeremy's words when answering a few questions. As most everyone does, I would highly recommend his series as a good way to review the material you've learned from the books. I paid $99 for one month of his service and then I cancelled.

In addition to these materials I used the Pearson Practice tests which came with WO's book (at the end of reading his book). I found them to be very difficult. I failed them every time but I learned a LOT from reviewing why I got the answers wrong. I would strongly recommend you spend time (1 week is more than enough for these) on practice exams questions because I found it much more challenging to answer scenario questions than simple fact questions.

Finally, I built a home lab from scratch. It's easy! This was crucial in helping me master the router commands taught in the book and CBT Nuggets. I bought two switches (WS-C2960-24TT-L, IOS V12.2(44)) and two routers (2621, IOS V12.1(3r)). I also purchased a usb>serial converter because I had no serial port on my PC. In total this cost me about $320. It was overkill for CCENT, I could've easily done fine with one switch and one router.

In the end, I spent 1.5 months studying for CCENT. My career background is mostly IT analyst work with about 1 years in IT operations work - so 90% of CCENT material was brand new to me. I spent at least 6 hours a day studying, 7 days a week.

Total cost: $555 + 400 hours of studying

smcclenaghan

Congratulations!!!