Im now CCNA! my advice inside...

Woohoo! Im now a CCNA!


Anyways I chose the INTRO and ICND path. It appeared to be easier to study for. passed the INTRO a few months back now... very easy!
Failed the ICND twice before passing last friday. After failing twice I wasnt very happy with Wendell Odom( i got the INTRO and ICND books).... decided to go out and buy Todd Lammle's CCNA study guide. I noticed that there seems to be gaps in both books! in the sence that there would be some info in one book and none about it in the other and vice verca(very important things!). I think you really need to read the books from both authers because them combined cover pretty much everything and well.
ICND is particulary hard because of ISDN,DDR and Frame Relay.. you really need to know ALL of the technology behind it ... all the standards and all the posible ways of configuring them. Frame Relay and DDR are ok actually but ISDN is a massive pain in the backside! I still suck at it.
subnetting..... you need to know and quick..... only worry about B and C classes. I write all my subnetting before the exam ie. all of the powers, up the 2 to the power of 14. all the 256- and the multiples of 16 and 32. thats pretty much it!


1) Buy both Odom's and Lammle's books
2) boson router simulator
3) read the books several times.... then take notes on all the hard things you cant remember ie. frame relay lmi types and encap types etc. etc.



Well im sending my resume to all the ISP's over here and am going to start studying for the RHCE.

Congratulations!!

Well im sending my resume to all the ISP's over here

Please keep us updated on how that goes

>Woohoo! Im now a CCNA!

Well done! It's no easy thing passing the CCNA. I have taken the same route having passed the INTRO at the second attempt two weeks ago. I wouldn't say that it was easy...... But it's definitely easier breaking it into two exams.

I have the two INTRO and ICND books by Wendall Oom. They make easy reading but don't adequately prepare you for the exam lab questions. The simulations on the book CD's do not match the exam simulations. One glaring omission from the Book labs is that they do not tell you to end the lab simulation with copy running-config startup-config. During the first exam I wondered what was going wrong. I struggled with the two exam labs because of this and I believe that if you get them wrong you will fail the exam.

I am also attending the Cisco Academy part time and have just started Semester 2. This is the long way about going about it as it takes TWO YEARS at my local college. It does cover a lot of material and the weekly exams at the college keep you on the ball. However, most learning is done at home, very little is done at college.

In addition to the below:


>1) Buy both Odom's and Lammle's books
>2) boson router simulator
>3) read the books several times.... then take notes on all the >hard things you cant remember ie. frame relay lmi types and >encap types etc. etc.


1. I would buy a cheap router off Ebay £50 sterling. Well worth it.
2. Join Cisco's new Prep Centre. This wasn't available when I took the exam as it has only just started. There are some very good simulations - just like the INTRO exam. Lots of questions. Free to join and open to anyone. But you do need to register.

Good Luck!

Congratulations mate

congrats on passing the exam!

i had a quick question...when u said u wrote down your subnetting and everything...what exactly were u talking about...cuz when i took it..thats the thing that messed me over...it took too much time to do the binary conversions and i ended up having less time...can u go into a little more detail about that? thanks...

no probs pothead,

when you walk in, the instructor logs you on the computer and then leaves.... at this point before I even click on all those ok's/next and accept buttons I start writing all my subnetting on the paper provided. Your'e not timed at this point... I think you are timed after you say your over 18 and accept the terms&conditions/NDA.

Hope this helps you pothead.