This is what I did and studied to pass CCENT for those interested

To those interested, 2 Months ago I started studying for CCENT before I passed the exam and this is what I used and how I did it.

1. Cisco Press CCENT/CCNA ICND1 Second Edition by Wendell Odom.

2. Bryant Advantage CCNA study guide BUT

3. This discussion group.

4. Studied most nights for a few hours and most weekends.

Before I studied the Cisco Press book I learnt how to subnet and do most of it in my head. Without good IP knowledge and being able to do it fast you are going to struggle.

Your IP should be good enough that you can work out a most of them without putting pen to paper.

IP

I did not like the way the Cisco Press taught IP or the way Bryant Advantage taught it. Both were far too slow to use on the exam and too open for human error if you put a 1 or 0 in the wrong place.

Cisco Press use the magic number which is what I use but then they go and write pages of information on it and to me they confused what is something

quite simple.

I had heard about this magic number 256 so I worked it out for myself how I should use it.

Any issues I did have on IP I got the answer from this discussion group.

Cisco Press

This book is good and the practice exam is also good with 161 questions.

You can choose just one subject or all, mark ones you are not sure about and on every question there is a shortcut to the pdf covering this subject.

There are many errors in the practice exams but when you work out it is an error that means you know the subject matter so that is some consolation.

This discussion group

This site is brilliant and without their help I may not have passed today because the book had a couple of serious errors which put me right off track.

One major issue in particular which would have affected my exam score today if I had believed the book, I knew something was not right and this discussion group not only confirmed I was right but showed me the proof with a packet sniifer,

Big Thanks to Paul Stewart for that one.

Study

I studied around 3 hours a night most nights.

I studied most weekends.

I went through the Cisco Press book twice.

I did the practice exam and marked what I was not confident on. I then went over what I got wrong and after that went back over the ones I had marked and opened up the pdf on each question.

After I did the practice exam a few times I then went through it again and skipped the questions I knew I could work out and went to the questions I either could not answer or I could not answer quickly. I would then find quick ways to answer them.

Doing it this way gave me a low score but at that point I was not concerned with the score, I was concerned with knowing how to do something and how to do it fast.

I went into the practice exam and changed the settings so it showed me e.g. all simulations, all router questions etc. This I found helpful as all questions were on the same thing so my mind was on one particular part.

I read through the answers to the “”Do I know this already”” the ones that had explanations anyway. I found this very helpful and nice and easy to read while sort of relaxing with a beer.

CCENT or CCNA first ?

Personally, I wanted to just study CCENT first because Cisco is a new subject to me and I wanted less to study for in one go, you may feel differently.

If I had failed today by a small margin I would not have taken the exam again because I felt confident so I would have just studied for the CCNA.

Exam day

I had to work today but 2 hours before the exam I went to a café across the road from the exam center, took my book with me, had a coffee and

something to eat. While I was there I read through the answers to the “”Do I know this already”” the ones that had explanations anyway.

How did I know I was ready ?

I didn't really, I just got bored looking at the practice exam questions knowing I could answer them so I thought that was a good indication.

Tips ?

Be very familiar with going into a router and a switch, looking for information and how to configure things.

On the sims in the Cisco book there are only 4 sims so don't just go into it and fix the problem, have a good look around, type in different commands.

Think of information you want to see and what commands you need to get that information.

I hope this helps someone at least a little bit, best of luck on the exam.

Regards

John