Completed CCNP - helpful tips

mitchflossinmitchflossin Member Posts: 28 ■■■□□□□□□□
Hey folks,

I just finished up TSHOOT yesterday which completed my certification. Of all 3 tests, I honestly felt like the ROUTE was the hardest, although I did pretty well on it. I thought the SWITCH was easy, but nearly failed it! I aced the TSHOOT and felt like it was pretty easy if you knew what you were doing.

For ROUTE (I took it first). I spent about about 2 months studying using GNS3 (gns3vault.com) and CBT nuggets. Like I said, I thought this was a very hard exam. I finished with 2 minutes to spare and thought for sure I had failed it.

SWITCH took me about 6 weeks to prepare for. I used CBT Nuggets and Switch Simplified book by Paul Browning. I also built a lab with physical equipment. I blazed through this exam, thinking I knew most of the answers for sure, and had 30 min to spare. Had I missed 1 or 2 more questions I probably wouldn't have passed.

TSHOOT took me about 2 weeks to prepare for. All I used was GNS3 coupled with real hardware for the switches, the topology from Cisco and Kevin Wallace Bullseye videos on YOutube. I've heard numerous people state this, and I agree wholeheartedly now: If you passed the ROUTE and SWITCH, you should have no problem passing the TSHOOT. It's a much, much easier exam if you have real world experience. Oh yeah, make sure you do the demo available on Cisco's site too. I went through that a few times and found it really helpful.

Feel free to ask questions... hopefully I can help in some way. Good luck to everyone!

mitch

Comments

  • sadfjlfdo24sadfjlfdo24 Banned Posts: 59 ■■□□□□□□□□
    I kind of had a feeling that ROUTE would be hardest of all three and TSHOOT the easiest, just by looking at the thickness of the 642-* books
    http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/1901/cisco141.jpg
  • Dieg0MDieg0M Member Posts: 861
    Congrats! Whats next?
    Follow my CCDE journey at www.routingnull0.com
  • mitchflossinmitchflossin Member Posts: 28 ■■■□□□□□□□
    That's just my opinion. I don't think the size of the book is a good representation to the difficulty of the exam. As a matter of fact the guy I work with thought the TSHOOT was the hardest and the SWITCH was easier than the CCNA. So go figure. He's a lot sharper than me too :)
  • mitchflossinmitchflossin Member Posts: 28 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Thanks Diego! Probably the CCNP Security, but I may try to knock out the CCDA/DP and/or CCNA Voice. I'm interested in learnign about voice, although I don't know if I"ll like it :D
  • DAVIS NGUYENDAVIS NGUYEN Member Posts: 1,472 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Congrats on the pass icon_thumright.gif
  • Master Of PuppetsMaster Of Puppets Member Posts: 1,210
    Congrats!
    Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.
  • union122union122 Member Posts: 41 ■■■□□□□□□□
  • FloOzFloOz Member Posts: 1,614 ■■■■□□□□□□
  • mitchflossinmitchflossin Member Posts: 28 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Thanks everyone!
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