Passed ROUTE!!!! - feels like Cisco has rattled my soul

Passed ROUTE bang on the passing score. I feel like Cisco has rattled my soul. Got to the last sim and froze when I realized how many questions I had left and how much time I had left but I made it.

I used the ROUTE FLG and although it was a beast of a book I'm glad I read every page. I'm now looking forward to the SWITCH FLG which is about half the size.

The Cisco Academy lab manual was gold but I recommend taking things a little further and hammering out labs from GNS3vault.

The Boson ExSim Max exams were also very helpful but I feel that the live exam was a tad harder. The key with Cisco exams is trying to determine what exactly they want you to do. You can be crash hot at everything but when you read some of those questions you're thinking...HUH!? That's why I think it's critical to gain test experience by using the ExSim Max pack.

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Somnipotent

wave wrote: »

Passed ROUTE bang on the passing score. I feel like Cisco has rattled my soul. Got to the last sim and froze when I realized how many questions I had left and how much time I had left but I made it.

I used the ROUTE FLG and although it was a beast of a book I'm glad I read every page. I'm now looking forward to the SWITCH FLG which is about half the size.

The Cisco Academy lab manual was gold but I recommend taking things a little further and hammering out labs from GNS3vault.

The Boson ExSim Max exams were also very helpful but I feel that the live exam was a tad harder. The key with Cisco exams is trying to determine what exactly they want you to do. You can be crash hot at everything but when you read some of those questions you're thinking...HUH!? That's why I think it's critical to gain test experience by using the ExSim Max pack.

don't let the size of the SWITCH FLG or OCG fool you... that test is even more beast than the ROUTE. congrats and best of luck on your next exam!

Nate--IRL--

Congrats

Nate

Roguetadhg

Congrats sir

jamesp1983

Congrats! Big accomplishment.

Panzer919

Congratz!

kaytaurus

Congrat mate..
got mine in a couple of weeks.... Hope to make it a one time pass tooo

jovyjigs

Many Many Congratulations.. We can now get very good guidance from you.. I am reading the FLG too. It has a lot of detailing but is very helpful as rightly told by you..

SharkDiver

Congratulations!
Good luck on the SWITCH. Fun exam! (sarcasm is implied)

MickQ

Well done on getting your Route!
I guess like so many others, I found Switch to be harder than Route. The book is smaller, but man, the exam really sucks the life from you during it.
Whatever prep you put into Route, put more into Switch and you won't be disappointed. Know the little details.

networker050184

Congrats!

alanaround

Congratulations

All the best with SWITCH!

wave

MickQ wrote: »

Well done on getting your Route!
I guess like so many others, I found Switch to be harder than Route. The book is smaller, but man, the exam really sucks the life from you during it.
Whatever prep you put into Route, put more into Switch and you won't be disappointed. Know the little details.

Thanks to everyone! It's a relief to have passed. I'll step it up a notch more for switch then!

MickQ

Best make it two notches. Route is hard, Switch is harder.

mattau

MickQ wrote: »

Best make it two notches. Route is hard, Switch is harder.

gulp

jovyjigs

Hey.. Can you let me know where can i get the practice exams?
I am reading FLG currently and simultaneously going through CBT nuggets..

DevilWAH

MickQ wrote: »

Best make it two notches. Route is hard, Switch is harder.

Is this really true?

here was my take on the two exams, and the study needed.

Switch Vs Route | DEVILWAH's BLOG

to sum up,

Route = few topics but in depth

Switch = many topics but less depth in each.

If you are a theory driven person you will find route easier, if you are good at remembering and like learning in bite size chunks things you might find switch OK. I think also most people seem to have more experience with L3 than L2, many smaller companies you little other than VLAN's at layer 2, So there are a lot of "new" topics in switch to cover. Personal I found this much more interesting as it was new things to learn rather than reading about routing and filling in the odd blank.

But well done on passing and good luck for switch

MickQ

I work with switches a hell of a lot more than routers. I'd also done about 90% of the Switch material in production environments.
When it came to the exam, I felt it should have bought me dinner beforehand.
Maybe it was just me on the day, but then in my conversations with others, they had the same opinion. Maybe you're just special Dev

DevilWAH

MickQ wrote: »

Maybe it was just me on the day, but then in my conversations with others, they had the same opinion. Maybe you're just special Dev

Note I said interesting not easier

The first time I took the switch my exam crashed and Cisco gave me a refund, this exam was hideous and the questions had mistakes and where misleading. I then took some time away (young baby) and came back about 6 months later, this time the exam made more sense and if you understood the topics was straight forward enough. My one bit of advice for the SWITCH is not to take the topics seperatly. when you are labbing during study put them together. for example, don't do a common spanning tree lab, then a per vlan then a multi vlan spanning tree lab. Put as many different topics in to the lab together as you can.

So learn them how you would use them, and this is different to routing where each protocol sits alone except when you redistribute between them.

clikcspeed

Somnipotent wrote: »

don't let the size of the SWITCH FLG or OCG fool you... that test is even more beast than the ROUTE. congrats and best of luck on your next exam!

This is very true. Congrats, you are halfway there! All the best with SWITCH

7of9

Congratulations on the pass and good luck in your Switch studies. The exams have changed a lot, but a few years ago, BCMSN was one of my favorites, but then, I was working on a very large switched network environment.

Lanswitcher

congrats! I failed it the first time by a few points, but ROUTE was my favorite.

Danielh22185

Glad to hear that book was a good resource for you, this is what I am currently reading.. I just passed my CCNA 2 months ago and am slowly dipping into CCNP (trying to get Sec+ before I go all out).

vinbuck

Congrats to the OP on passing ROUTE...that sucker leaves you drained.

I'm gonna cast my lot with DevilWAH, I felt that ROUTE was harder than SWITCH. Probably because ROUTE was the first NP level exam i had taken. Once I had an idea of what they look for on an NP exam, I was able to adjust fire accordingly. SWITCH is not as complicated as ROUTE, it just requires a good working knowledge of what Layer 2 technologies and options will work together and which ones don't.

If you can lab everything in the SWITCH NetAcad SLM, then you'll be fine on the labs in the exam. The rest of SWITCH is mostly memorization and regurgitation of the content, whereas ROUTE required more analysis of the memorized content.