Test Order

KMAN24 · February 2005

What Order Should the four tests for CCNP be taken in ?

Also what's the best sim out there ? Any one ever used MIMIC ?

TranscenderMichael · February 2005

I don't think there's a right or wrong order. However, I went BSCI, BCMSN, BCRAN and CIT.

tunerX · February 2005

Thats the same order that I did mine. I recommend that you do CIT last because you will pickup trouble shooting tips when studying for the other 3 tests.

williamwbishop · February 2005

I'll be starting on the ccnp after I pass the ccna test in march. I thought about taking one of the easier ones first, to kind of give a boost and be one test down. Wrong idea?

TranscenderMichael · February 2005

williamwbishop wrote:

I'll be starting on the ccnp after I pass the ccna test in march. I thought about taking one of the easier ones first, to kind of give a boost and be one test down. Wrong idea?

None of them are "easier ones", in my opinion.

Again, there's no right or wrong way, but here's my logic...
BSCI is a natural extension of the CCNA exam(s) - you pick up your router studies where you left off, adding advanced OSPF concepts, IS-IS, BGP, and a bunch of commands.
BCMSN does the same for switches. Many more commands to learn - but it was a LOT worse when you had to know both IOS and SET commands.
BCRAN uses some of what you learned in BSCI (and maybe a little of BCMSN - can't remember for sure) and focuses it on remote access solutions. Without knowing the stuff in BSCI, it may be quite difficult.
CIT uses a lot of what you learned in the previous three exams and focuses on troubleshooting. This may *seem* like the easiest of the four, once you get to it... but as tunerX suggested, I wouldn't want to try to take it without the benefit of the previous three exams.

BSCI will seem like the most difficult to you, and perhaps it is. But I wouldn't want to try the other exams without first learning the routing concepts covered by BSCI.

Hope this helps.

keenon · February 2005

well this helps me out i started out doing switching but i will take the routing track first, then go to switching and so on :P

Webmaster · February 2005

I agree with Michael, BSCI is the most logical first CCNP exam after CCNA, especially since OSPF, VLSM and other routing topics became so prominent on the new CCNA exam. I do think BSCI is a bit more difficult (also the most interesting) than BCMSN (I haven't taken the latter yet), partly because of BGP in BSCI and the BCMSN Cisco press guide has 600 pages instead of 900.

williamwbishop · February 2005

I cannot argue your reason guys, you presented it logically. So I guess it's the routing.

Test Order

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