Anyone thought of taking the CCNA as whole after they have their icnd1?

gbdavidx

Thinking about doing this so I can force myself to make sure i know all the material, has anyone else done this?

santaowns

do you mean taking the composite exam after passing ccent? Personally I think I might try the composite the next time I attempt the ccent.

gbdavidx

yeah, that was it kinda refreshes everything for you, i was thinking of doing ICND1 and then taking just the whole CCNA, because I figure I might forget some of the ccent material by the time i'm done with CCNA material

santaowns

I couldn't find anywhere that says you cant on the cisco site. Granted I am not sure why you wouldn't just do some other form of tests rather than pay an extra $175. Personally would do the 200-101 and then use the $175 to get a good practice test and labs to do to keep it fresh. Reading and testing is one thing, but doing it real world every day is where the money is, this is why they always look for experience. If you can tell someone that you have been labing the command line every day for the last 6 months or tell them "I took the composite exam after passing CCENT to recall the material". I'd rather hear what you did on the command line.

It is great to want to prove that you know it once again but in my opinion it isn't necessary. You get less time for the composite exam so you may rush yourself and then fail. Just too many bad scenarios to make it a good idea.

I do however suggest that you shadow with your network guys at work, watch what they do for Telco errors, WAN connections, because that will come in handy. I would even add this on my resume under my current job as something like "Selected to shadow Network technicians in following areas: xxx,xxxx,xxxxx. We utilized xxxx tools."

gbdavidx

thanks for the advice!

aftereffector

I suppose you could take the 200-120 (CCNA Composite) after passing the 100-101 (ICND1), but it would cost $150 more. The overall number of questions is about the same between 200-120 and 200-101, so taking ICND2 would of course give you more questions on ICND2 concepts, which might be a strategy if you are more familiar with ICND1 material.

DoubleNNs

I know a few people do that because they are weak on the ICND2 topics. If you're strong on network fundamentals and the ICND1 material, you can push your score into a pass by doing the composite instead of taking the ICND2.

Another reason is that they took their ICND1 a long time ago and are finally going to complete their CCNA.

If you're not trying to work/manipulate the system, I see little reason to take the composite.