Reviewing CCNA necessary?

Ryco · September 2011

Passed the CCNA in May, had everything learned and memorized to the point where I felt I could teach it. Took some time off from certs with the new job and I'm reading to get back into things. In the 4 months that have passed I've forgotten some of the finer details, but the concepts are still down solid.

My question is: does the CCNP review a lot of the CCNA material to the point where it would be a waste of time to spend 2 weeks or so getting all details down again? Or is it advanced concepts built off of the CCNA material with minimal review?

jamesp1983 · September 2011

I would advise you to take an inventory of your skills and knowledge in reference to the blueprint for the CCNP. Study up on anywhere you feel weak.

hkechoes · September 2011

If you really did spent real efforts in preparing the CCNA, I mean, by reading "cisco cert guide ICND 2", lots of switching materials are already overlapping with the SWITCH blueprint. Things about VLANs, STP, VTP, inter-VLAN routing are just the same, with some more details - and added more materials like MST, SVI, private VLANs.

Hence go reviewing what you studied in CCNA is always a good thing.

Same goes for the ROUTE exam too. Reviewing what you've learnt in CCNA about EIGRP and OSPF, and you'd less likely to get lost when reading the bulk materials in the ROUTE FLG guides.

--
CCNP SWITCH: (read: 35; lab 9)
CCNP ROUTE: (read: 2; lab: 0)

S3CUR3N3TW0RK · October 2011

You'll be fine. Just start studying for the CCNP exams and if you get to an area that isn't clicking during the CCNP study you can then either go back to your CCNA books or go to Cisco's website or other online sources for those particular area's. Honestly your probably going to be fine though, as the CCNP tends to cover most of those fine details that were in the CCNA over again but in even more detail.

MT0911 · October 2011

A quick review never hurts. Though I agree with the above ^ The way CCNP is formatted you really get the intricate details on each subject (OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, etc). The things that it does not cover is the bare basics that you learn in CCNA, so the simple things like OSI layers, IP Addressing, etc are of course - assumed knowledge. As long as you have a decent understanding of the foundations then you should be fine. I'm working on CCNP right now also and I myself am doing a quick review, nothing so extensive but enough to be a good refresher. Once I'm done, I'll get right into it and if I happen to stumble across something that I get lost with, then it's a simple search on Google or Cisco and I'll have the answer. Nevertheless, good luck man!

martell1000 · October 2011

been working on the route exam for some weeks now and there is no need to really "go back" to ccna lessons. sure you should remember the basics you learned about ospf,eigrp,static and default routes...

networker050184 · October 2011

I'd go ahead and review if it were me. I can't see any downside to it, but not knowing some of the fundamentals you forgot can cause you to struggle.

MT0911 · October 2011

There are a couple of way's to do a quick review.

To save time, pull up the CCNA exam topics from Cisco's website. Run through the list and if there is anything that you cannot remember or need to brush up on, take a little time to go over it whether it be a search on Google, a chapter in a CCNA book, or some type of CBT video. By the time you get to the end of the list you should be good to start CCNP.

Like I said earlier, I'm about to start CCNP Route (probably within the next week). For review I read the 31 Days Before Your CCNA - cisco press book. It's very simple since each chapter/day is only around 10 pages. I pretty much read 2 to 3 chapters/days (20-30 pages) in one day and I was able to get through the whole book in a week and a half. Then I have the CCNA Video Mentor -Wendell Odom which has like 4 hours of videos that reviews everything, and so far it has taken me 3 days and I'm over halfway through. I plan to finish this weekend. That means I spent about 2 weeks in total and I got a solid review. That's really not that much time and my review was pretty thorough. You could easily do a quick review following the method above (going through the exam obj.) and finish in less than a week.

Reviews never hurt and can only better yourself. Good luck man!

Reviewing CCNA necessary?

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