@ Anyone who has taken a CCNA Exam

In CCNA 1 there is a lot of information about networking media, cable standards, cable testing, electrical concepts etc.

How much of this actually comes up in the exams? There's so much information in the curriculum I really don't think its feasible to absorb it all. Obviously I know about cables but to know about Sine waves, varying types of signals and such topics seems too much.

TCP/IP, router bootup process, routing and switching, VLANs, subnetting etc are all practical things that can be covered with labs and learned properly. I can't however see myself memorizing hundreds of pages of factual information about waveforms, signals and cable testing concepts.

Any info will be appreciated.

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Comments

mattrgee

The Cisco NDA prohibits giving details about the exam I'm afraid.

Base your revision on the official Cisco exam blueprint, that way you can't go wrong. See the Cisco website for details.

dynamik

What resource(s) are you using? I don't remember hundreds of pages on electrical physics...

luke_bibby

I remember when i did a CCNA1/2 and CCNA3/4 course at uni (which would have been around the time when 640-801 was active) and having to learn about waveforms and how to test cables and stuff.

However, after just doing my CCENT (ICND1) and about to go for my CCNA (ICND2) I have not found any of that kind of material in any of the study resources I have used so far (Cisco Press books, CBT nuggets, Sybex CCNA).

Will you ever need to know that kind of stuff in the 'real world'? Probably doesn't hurt but who on earth would ever test a cat5e cable to see if a fault lies there when its easier to just use a new one.

Someone might have a different view on this?

networker050184

luke_bibby wrote: »

Will you ever need to know that kind of stuff in the 'real world'? Probably doesn't hurt but who on earth would ever test a cat5e cable to see if a fault lies there when its easier to just use a new one.

Someone might have a different view on this?

Its not always as easy as using a new cable. What if it is a long cable run through the ceiling/floors? I'd much rather throw a tester on there rather than just rerun the whole cable before knowing if its even bad or not. Hey, if you love extra cable work then by all means replace before testing

luke_bibby

networker050184 wrote: »

Its not always as easy as using a new cable. What if it is a long cable run through the ceiling/floors? I'd much rather throw a tester on there rather than just rerun the whole cable before knowing if its even bad or not. Hey, if you love extra cable work then by all means replace before testing

Good point, I usually only replace cables used for trunking for switches which are usually only a few feet apart so in that case it is quicker to try a new cable

Neeko

mattrgee wrote: »

The Cisco NDA prohibits giving details about the exam I'm afraid.

Base your revision on the official Cisco exam blueprint, that way you can't go wrong. See the Cisco website for details.

I'm asking about several chapters, not anything specific. If I was asking about specific questions I would expect this sort of comment, but I'm not exactly cheating... I learn the rightful way but I think learning masses of unusable information is a pointless exercise.

dynamik wrote: »

What resource(s) are you using? I don't remember hundreds of pages on electrical physics...

CCNA Companion Guides published by Cisco Press, they are for version 3.1 though not the new 4.0. I will be taking 640-821 and 640-811 with retired codes.

There's a fair bit of information on electronics, circuits, signals, waveforms etc, that unless you really study the physics in depth don't form much of a picture anyway. I've read the chapters but it would take some serious time to absorb this kind of Science stuff. It's a whole different world to what I'm used to - practical networking.

Sure being able to test cables is helpful, but do you need to explain what Fourier Synthesis is and how to analyze singals using an osciliioscope?

tiersten

luke_bibby wrote: »

Good point, I usually only replace cables used for trunking for switches which are usually only a few feet apart so in that case it is quicker to try a new cable

I've had a contractor make a mistake when terminating network cables and not use the correct wires in each pair. It would refuse to work at anything faster than forced 10 half. The actual cable was fine and once we worked out what they did, it was okay.

/usr

but who on earth would ever test a cat5e cable to see if a fault lies there when its easier to just use a new one.

If you're testing cable, 99% of the time it's going to be in the walls/ceiling/floor, or otherwise in some barely, if at all, accessible area.

I would say the other 1% is if you really just want to make sure that patch cable you just made passes certification.