Pre-Course

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Afternoon All,

I am attending a training course for the CCNA in August but I also have CBT Nuggets through work. Just curious, when you know you are attending a training course, do you do pre-course study or just rock up with limited knowledge?

Obviously I want to arrive knowing my stuff as it were, but don't want too conflict the study material from CBT with the Study material from the course if that makes sense?

 

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How I self study for an exam is that I don't use only one resource, the more the better!

Using multiple resources will give you the bigger picture and will cover areas that other materials didn't cover.

If you have the free time I highly recommend watching CBT nuggets and lab on packet tracer.

For books, I highly recommend 60 days CCNA by Paul Browning. If you follow his book it will help you keep on track.

 

TBH the study material whether it's from the course or a book should follow the same blueprint requirement, as mentioned above I don't even rely on one single source of truth, I take the knowledge from multiple sources so that it's stuck there. As an example my VCAP study used a number of different study guides, video material, hands on labs and blog posts, the same with various other subjects I have studied.

Trust but verify from multiple sources

 

Thank you chaps, appreciate it. I plan on hitting the ICND Books And CBT Nuggets) before the course, completing the course and then sitting the exams soon after

 

So check on the books, I believe that the it used to be that anything from Wendell Odom was the right material to read, not sure if that still stands tho.

 

I have both the Wendell Books so thats perfect
Cheers

 

The other thing you may want to do is have a look at Udemy and get either the Chris Bryant or Laz Diaz courses.

 

I think it would be a good idea to study before hand as hearing the info in more than one place is always a good idea. I wouldn’t over study though, I think just watching the CBT videos should be suffient in regards to preparing you, then just do most of your study in August when you attend the course. Watch the videos twice if that helps, just dont run yourself into the ground.. remember to work and play hard

 

Excellent as always chaps. Where would I be without you guys

Thanks

 

What I do is watch one video course at a time.

So I will watch CBT nuggets first, when I've completed CBT nuggets I move onto another course, then another one etc.

It gets to the point that when you're on the third or fourth course, you will think to yourself "I already know this". The repetition really does wonders.

Also during the video courses I skim read one study book at a time and I do my labs at the weekends.

 

I find occasionally a pre pre course helps before the pre course, never can be too prepared, and then you can sleep through the main course or simply not turn up !

 

I personally prefer the Todd Lammle books over the Odom ones. The Lammle books are written in more simplistic language, cut out a lot of the fluff & you'll find a LOT of people rate the way he teaches subnetting.

As Simon said, the study materials will all teach the same things. Just some will have more info, about extraneous things, some will miss things from the blueprint etc.

Just make sure you're using the exam blueprint. The blueprint allows you to filter out the noise and focus on the stuff that matters. A lot of the time exam prep material, a lot is background information to help you understand, & maybe only 30% will be actually tested on in the exam. Once I started using the blueprint to filter out unnecessary information, I started finding certs much easier to cope with & study for.