The Road To CCNA

here are two ways to handle any exam; either read and prepare to pass the exam and have the certificate without learning the real thing, and somethings that are not in here might help you like TestKing and Pass4sure. On the other hand, you can study and learn and prepare yourself for the exam along the way. And that’s something I might be helpful in managing.Recover Files After Format 

I will not tell you things like “Take your CCNA in 3 days” or five days, because these are all mere lies. I will guide you through depending on my experience as a Cisco Academy instructor and having lots of students who passed the exam with grades from 950 to 1000.

Based upon my experience, a month would be adequate for understanding the CCNA materials as well as prepare yourself for the exam. First, I will go through the studying schedule and then I will go on further details regarding the exam and how to prepare for it and how to pass it.

First of all, prepare yourself for studying 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 4 weeks. This gives us an overall of 96 hours of study. And be careful not to pass hours from one day to another. DO NOT study for more than 4 hours a day. It will be tiring, and things you read after the four hours will have to be studied again because you will not be able to understand it. During these four hours you MUST have 30 minutes break. After the first hour and 45 minutes, you should take a 30 minutes break and go back for the other hour and 45 minutes.

For self study purposes, I recommend using the Cisco Press CCNA package. It has two books by Stephen McQuerry; INTRO (for the basics of networking) and ICND (Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices). These two books cover the CCNA materials well. It’s like a collection of the useful things from the CCNA academy materials.

If you are looking for a more brief coverage of the CCNA materials, you can use the Todd Lammle’s book in its 5th edition printed by Sybex. But the problem with this book is that it doesn’t cover the whole story. It lacks the two very important subjects of NAT and DHCP, which are practically very important. And I have put together some simple Easyrecoverydocuments about NAT and DHCP that can help students depending on Lammle’s book. You can find them here .

And for practical training, if you cannot borrow an old router, you can use a simulator. Many types of simulators are out there in the market and lots of them are useless. Few of the good ones that I recommend are Boson’s or the one that is sold by Cisco Press. And to be honest, the best simulator that I have seen until now is called PacketTracer. This is the simulator used by Cisco Academies for thier student. And I don’t think its available for public use outside the academy.

I did the schedule below based on subjects and not on chapters so students could go with either Lamlle’s book or McQuerry books