ICND1 Round 2

I leave for my test in about two hours and got some good sleep last night. I've been doing some timed labs I downloaded and getting through those and getting everything right as far as the commands go and I watched a few videos from danscourses as some extra review and took some practice questions here on the site, made a 90 on the second set I took. I really believe that I have it this time and I'll be posting my results here when I get done with the exam.

I have also changed the way that I do my subnetting table. TWX had a great way of doing his that I found worked better for me than what I was doing before and can actually fit well on one page.

What I like about his chart is that it's also really easy to see how many subnets each specific address in a class has and knowing where to start doubling in case they ask me to find how many subnets this specific Class A or Class B address has very quickly and with just a little bit of math involved. Before I was writing out a long list of CIDRS on the right and going from there and thought it looked a lot less organized than the new table I'm doing. I can't think him enough and this forum for being such a great resource.

Once I get this over with, it's off to ICND2 hopefully and starting to buy some physical equipment for that.

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Comments

bender_fender100

james43026 wrote: »

Looks like the three areas you really need to concentrate on are, LAN switching, IP routing, and troubleshooting, those three combined are 60% of the test as far as points are concerned, device security is another 10%, you could study more on that too. IP addressing and network operations are only 10% combined, so I wouldn't sweat those.

Alright. That makes sense. I was always confused on how exactly these exams are weighted. I did my own calculations and figured that I had missed the equivalent of 13 questions on the actual exam and I need to miss less than 9 or 10 to pass, but I have known that the simulation labs on the exam are weighted more than other questions are. I've seen a lot of talk about subnetting and still wanted to improve in that area anyway, though the more I do it, the more straightforward most of that becomes so I'll focus a bit less on it, but still keep the skill up when I'm not studying for the other topics. I was really bad at network security the first time at a 38%, that score went up, but not in the way that I had hoped it would.

I already know which CBT Nuggets videos I will rewatch. There are about 8 of them that directly relate to topics I keep having trouble on and I'm going to get some index cards tomorrow and make some flash cards out of those. I'll see what happens and retake some Boson exams afterwards.

Out of all the topics related to those three you mentioned, I need to study collision and broadcast domains, the CAM table, the forwarding/filtering process on a switch, VLANs some more, static and dynamic routing, some interVLAN routing, NAT terminology, and some more security overall. Those are some of the topics from the top of my head that I know that I still need work on. I feel more comfortable with my OSPF knowledge and knowing where to troubleshoot if I were to get a lab sim on it. Basically where I went wrong is that I was studying for everything and not putting enough emphasis on those three specific areas like I thought.

bender_fender100

I've started to go through Jeremy's videos on switches again. I forgot how well he could explain these topics, but I'm concerned that maybe I'm taking too many notes. From the first video I alone, I filled up 6 pages in there, including drawings. I just tend to feel more comfortable taking notes whenever I watch any of these videos, but I don't want to go overboard and do too much. I'm trying to also break up how many videos I rewatch into 2-3 per day instead of trying to do as many as possible in a day so the information sinks in better.

bender_fender100

Another quick update.

I retook the first Boson exam and scored my highest score yet on it. 776/1000 without having to retake any questions. My highest score on one of the was a 625. I think CBT Nuggets is already helping to make things clearer along with writing down what I think the answer to a question is before even looking at any of the choices, but I still need to go finish going through all the switching videos, their videos on NAT, DHCP and static routing, and the security videos and then take the other ones just to be sure before I decide to retake the other two and I feel like after that, going through the one where Jeremy talks about the mac address table just one more time. I'm going through configuration, passwords and port security today as I watched a few CBT Nuggets videos yesterday night.

I also continue to get faster and faster at subnetting from memory too just by doing 5-10 minutes of exercises on some subnetting websites.

Chev Chellios

Sounds like you are on the right lines mate, keep up the good work and good luck for the exam! Can't offer much in the way of advice as I've been too lazy and skint to book my ICND1 but sure you will smash it this time!

bender_fender100

Chev Chellios wrote: »

Sounds like you are on the right lines mate, keep up the good work and good luck for the exam! Can't offer much in the way of advice as I've been too lazy and skint to book my ICND1 but sure you will smash it this time!

Thank you. I can't wait until I get home today so I can try out another approach to watching the videos that I hadn't done that much before to see if that will help on any of the more challenging concepts. I'll watch the video once without taking any notes, then go back and watch it again and then take notes rather than doing both in one take. It's a lot of experimenting to see what sticks and what doesn't, but by doing all of this now, I can use what I learned and apply that to other certs that I want to get in the future.