ICND2 Pass! (also belated ICND1 pass post)

knah

I passed ICND1 about a week and a half ago, and I passed ICND2 today. Not a bad score (907) considering I feel like I could have spent another 2-4 weeks reviewing. I started studying January of 2013 with Netacad classes at a CC. The school teaches the curriculum slowly enough that it takes a year to get through all 4 classes. I wanted to take the tests sooner but kept finding reasons to put them off (other certs, Cisco changed the exams, I wanted the Netacad discount, started a new job, got sick, one of the classes was cancelled, life). Anyways, after studying on and off for over a year, I felt like it was time to bite the bullet, cram a bit, and take the tests.

Review of Study Materials (in case this helps someone):

Networking Academy: Very valuable. Lets you touch real equipment. Very good labs. Goes deep with lots of information well beyond what you need to know for the exam (Netacad quizzes are about 2-4x harder than the actual exams)--this could be seen as a plus or a minus. Highly recommend. The big downside is that they took so long.

CBT Nuggets videos: I really like Jeremy's videos; by far my favorite video trainer. I like to speed up the videos where he discusses concepts to 1.5-1.7x to keep from getting bored. For configuration videos I like to follow along in Packet Tracer / GNS3. Over the months, I probably watched most of the old CCNA videos and all of the CCNA 2013 videos. Highly recommend these to someone whom liked Jeremy's style and is willing/able to follow along.

Lammle's Book: Pretty good. After Netacad, I felt like it didn't go very deep. Probably would be best to cover topics in Lammle and video training before covering them at the Academy. That said, I think he covers most all of what you need to know to pass. I'd recommend the book, but would suggest supplementing with more labs/videos. I have no idea how Lammle stacks up against Odom.

Cisco CCNA Routing and Switching 200-120 Flash Cards and Exam Practice Pack: A real gem. I love this book. It comes with 3 ICND2 practice exams, it's split up into two parts for ICND1 and ICND2. Each part includes a brief summary/review of basic concepts and configurations (very easy to find the right commands to review here). The bulk of the book is flash cards (typically 3 to a page) which pose a question, the answer is on the other side. I didn't go through this book enough to memorize everything, but just having all the info broken up into little easily digestible tidbits really helps remind one of things and even gain a more thorough overall understanding. Well worth the money.

Build your own review topology: A day or two before the tests, I loaded up PT/GNS3 and made a big (and ugly) topology trying to incorporate all the different topics into the same network and make them all coexist and be able to ping each other. Fixing things here when they don't do what you expect lets you eliminate misconceptions/erroneous beliefs. This is a great way to review configurations and become a better troubleshooter.

Xyro

Congrats on both passes!