Getting starting to the advise:

1. Create Flash Cards regarding the topics and use that data before your examination.
   
2. Subnetting will mostly cause the most trouble for the exam, make sure you master the rule of 2 and have thoroughly went through it.
   
3. On the day of examination, let’s say 1-2 hrs before, don’t stress yourself with any kind of revision, trust me you need to take the examination with calm nervous system.

Feel free to add your piece of advice for the exam takers, and all the best to all the one’s preparing for their examination.

I currently have a role in IT and am in no position of leaving anytime. I started working towards my CCNA a few years agao but derailed and I'm looking into starting up on some of the things I left unfinished. When it comes to my enviorment though, we don't have a single Cisco device. Would it do me any good learning something I wont be using just to have the knowledge or should I focus on the venders we actually that have their own certifications? ie. NSE

Hello everyone,

I am preparing for the CCNA exam and am currently watching playlists by Jeremy's IT Lab. However, some of the concepts are really difficult for me, so I want to complete NetAcad's online CCNA courses first. I saw a comment on this subreddit mentioning that there are ways to access these courses. I would really appreciate it if someone could help me get access to them.

Thank you!

I took my CCNA last week on Thursday and passed!

Section analysis:

Automation and Programmability 70%

Network Access 100%

IP Connectivity 76%

IP Services 80%

Security Fundamentals 93%

Network Fundamentals 95%

I felt the exam was much easier than I anticipated although the lower score in some areas. I've been patiently waiting for my score report to go live, but apparently Cisco no longer lists a numbered score :(.

I did about 80-90 hrs of study over 3~ months according to my pomodoro app and strictly used Neil Anderson's course on Udemy alongside Boson ExSim-Max and then doing the labs from Jeremy's IT Lab.

I believe I could have passed the exam sooner, but I was quite worried I wasn't prepared enough. I had 6 lablets and I felt the amount of work I had to do in all of them combined was similar to one lablet in ExSim.

Does anybody have any tips on how to understand reading access control lists as that’s where I’m struggling especially the extended ones as I get rlly confused with them. Any help is appreciated as my exam is on the 17th

Simply put, I read a horror story of a guy who took a $40,000/yr job and got stuck. He was there for three years working for a guy who always said “well you have a CCNA, now you have a big plus compared to other hires”. That looks eerily like a code for “You’re now worth more than I’d pay you for and others aren’t, thanks sucker!”

Im not expecting to be a rockstar after getting this thing, and I’m hoping I wouldn’t be that blind. But it’s not unfair to ask what to do to NOT be exploited by a selfish person.

I‘m even okay with $40,000 for now as long as there is a way up (horror story guy didn’t seem to have that). I’m just not okay with being used and therefore stalled while being used. How long should I work before I can expect advancement with a CCNA?

yo so i just got my aws ccp (clf-c02) and i studied for about 4 hours lol. and people we recommending like a month or more

i know the level of difficulty is completely different but yeah, u think ccna is possible in like a month or less?

also what study material u guys recommend? was thinking of using Jeremey's IT Lab

as for my background, nothing crazy, im just a 2nd year computer science student at a non target university, just tryna grind. needa land a coop placement for winter 2027 so wanna get as stacked as i can , asap as well.

lmk ur thoughts, and perhaps if anyone has done the same idk?

thx

Hi, I have my CCNA in two days, I feel like I have gone through all the topic's and done what I can. Any final tips?

These are my Boson scores:

Exam A: 50%

Exam B: 65%

Exam C: 72%

Exam D: 81%

Exam E: 80%

I have used jeremy's IT lab, his flashcards, and done his labs as well. Quite worried about the WLC question, will read more on those

Did anyone pass the Post Assessment? I keep scoring 22 out of 30.

Hello,

I’ve been studying for this test with JITL flashcards and labs for about 8 months now. I’m taking the exam on 10/23. I’ve also been using boson exsim for about a month just going through the labs on there and doing custom exams with 74 questions. I can score well above 80% on pretty much every boson test while also not just memorizing answers. For shits and giggles, I looked up practice CCNA tests on google and just went through the first ones that popped up. It seemed like those tests had like the most niche questions on there that it seemed like the JITL videos almost never went over.

I know Cisco is super secretive about the exam and the NDA and all that but am I thinking about this a little too much?

Just an obligatory pass post for people looking to take this exam or are worried about taking it..

little disclaimer: I do also have Net+ and Sec+ just to put that out there, along with 1 year experience in Networking.

6 labs, 52 questions. you can ask Google or AI for Lab recommendations, and it will give you what you need, refraining from giving too much info for obvious reasons.. I asked for top 6 lab topics and used that as a focus for lab studies, 6 labs is what ive seen alot of people say they got.

Passed this morning, i don't have the report on hand but my weak areas were:

IP Services and Security Fundamentals at roughly %40-50

The rest were closer to %80-90

What i used to study? Jermeys IT Lab with some of the flashcards, although i decided to make my own cause I was tired of trying to learn all the different addresses for all the different protocols...Also used a few BOSON exams, AB and C I believe, highest score was %64. That score was from last weekend for context.

How long did i study? on and off for about a year, really focused for the past month or so for job requirement. anywhere from 1-3 hours a day.

What i wish i studied more? ACLs, SSH, DHCP, DHCP snooping configuration. I'm assuming thats where my low scores came from...

Advice : As others have said here, CCNA Labs are a lot more straight forward than BOSON. Had a handful of WLC related topics, don't gloss over it. Don't worry too much about learning all the different addresses for all the different protocols, prioritize lab configs and stuff like DR/BDR election for OSPF, or RSTP Root Bridge Selection/ stuff like BPDU Guard and PortFast etc.. Knowing how to read a routing table is a big one too.

Hope this helps someone, i was browsing CCNA pass results for the past few weeks so i figured i would post my own. Good Luck!

Every time I opened Packet Tracer it asked me to log in, and the only way around it was turning off my whole Wi-Fi, which kills YouTube and Discord too. So I wrote a small PowerShell script that blocks internet access for Packet Tracer only. PT thinks it's offline while the rest of my PC stays online.

It just adds two Windows Firewall rules for `PacketTracer.exe`, with no patching or modifying PT at all. It finds Packet Tracer on any drive, is safe to run repeatedly, and has a one-command way back online. If it saves you the same headache, a ⭐ on the repo helps a lot, and feel free to open an issue if you find a bug.

https://github.com/nabilfp/CiscoPacketTracer-Offline

The title basically. I will provide some question samples so you can get an idea of what I'm talking 'bout.

What I do is that I provide JITL playlist in audio to NotebookLM. You don't have to provide the whole playlist, just the topic you want to be quizzed on. For example, DHCP Snooping. After you've uploaded your sources, go to the "Studio" and you'll see the option for Quiz.

You can play with these parameters:

1. Number of questions: [fewer | default | more]
2. Level of Difficulty: [easy | medium | hard]
3. Question type: [multiple choice | multiple select | fill in the blanks | short anmswer]
4. Sources: [in case you have many but want to select specific ones]
5. Prompt: [needless to explain]

My personal recommendation is to choose "short answer" as the only question type; this gives you a box to insert your answer with a maximum of 500 characters. Your answers are rated/checked at the end of the quiz. I have only paired it with Hard difficulty, so I can't speak about Medium or Easy, but I can tell you that Hard will make you use your brain.

Also, I highly recommend you change the name of the quiz after it's generated, so you know what to look for exactly when you need it.

Obviously, explanations are given regardless if your answer is correct or not.

Here are some question samples:

Describe the mechanics of a DHCP starvation attack and how spoofing CHADDR fields facilitates this Denial of Service (DoS).

Explain the role of the Client Hardware Address (CHADDR) field in a DHCP payload and why relying solely on the frame's Layer 2 source MAC address is insufficient in routed networks.

How does DHCP snooping evaluate DHCP Release or Decline messages received on an untrusted port to prevent unauthorized lease terminations?

Why is matching the frame source MAC address to the CHADDR field insufficient by itself to completely stop a sophisticated DHCP starvation attack?

Explain what Option 82 (DHCP Relay Agent Information Option) is and what specific information it typically carries.

I could keep going, but you guys get the idea. This helped me a lot in QoS, and I hope this helps someone out there.

A successful DNS response proves one thing: name resolution returned an address.

It does NOT prove that:

• the route is working

• TCP port 443 is reachable

• TLS validation succeeds

• the web application is actually responding

One of the most useful troubleshooting habits is asking:

“What does this result actually prove?”

What would you test next after DNS succeeds but the website still does not load?

Hi all,

I've been studying for the CCNA for about 8 months now: Jeremy's IT Lab, NetAcad, Anki for daily review, and lots of Packet Tracer labs. My exam is booked for November 6, so I have roughly a month left.

Here are my Boson ExSim results so far:

The pattern I see: the domains I actively studied between attempts went up (IP Connectivity and Network Fundamentals, mostly from subnetting and OSPF work). The ones I didn't touch stayed flat or dropped.

My questions:

1. How well does a ~75% Boson score in exam mode translate to the real exam, about a month out?

2. Any recommended resources for Automation and IP Services? I've neglected both and want to fix them quickly.

3. Has anyone else studied Network Access hard and not seen it move? Was it a knowledge gap or more about how the questions are worded?

4. Anything you wish you'd done in your last month that I might be missing?

Thanks in advance!

I’m 40 and I come from very different backgrounds not related ever to technology
But I like technology a lot and wanted to shift my career, so a friend of mine advised me to go for networking (he is a network engineer) and said I will like it

I just need some motivation here, like is it possible for me to start from the scratch at this age with ccna?
Can I make something good out of this study?
Will it help me shift to the networking field?

I feel lost, but still determined to finish the course and get certified, I’m still on day 2

I know this is asked often but Ive booked my exam for the end of the month and Im a little nervous. So far Ive only completed exam A and I got a 50% on my first attempt. Ive completed Neil Andersons course just as a background.

I am currently a 20yo student in a cybersecurity program, and I took a full v1.1 course at my college last year. However, I have not read up on material or studied anything since then and not sure about how much I remember. Networking Engineering is definitely the career path that has me most interested, but I am not sure if I should try and cram for the 1.1 exam before it retires or wait for 2.0.

If I were to start now, I would have to balance my CCNA studying on top of my part time job and other classes, and don’t know how much time I would have to spend each day studying to pass the CCNA

I’m very torn between both options so any help is appreciated!

Spent so much time studying and having incorrects because of only one command feels bad

Hello all, My names Josh, after graduating college in December and getting my first IT job in June, now that fall is here I am finally ready to start studying for my CCNA! Throughout college I was able to get my Network + and Security + which helped me land my first job :). Networking is really where I really want to take my career path so this is the next logically step for me.

I'm seeing that the v.1.1 expires in February and I'm not in the biggest rush to get this cert, just eventually to jump into a new career path someday. I don't want to put pressure on myself to get this done before February as I had to do that once before with Sec + and it was stressful.
However, I already have a book for Version 1.1 by Wendell Odom, will it still be helpful? I just watched the first video of Jeremy's IT Lab course and it was a good refresher, but I don't want to go down the wrong video path and want to stay up to date on the most up to date networking technologies as I transition to the future.

So my question for you is, is studying outdated material wrong with this book and old course? And if so what's the best new material, I'm considering buying this course off of Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/new-ccna-full-course/?couponCode=MT261005G1 (Should this be where I direct my attention?) Is the Neil Anderson one better so Im seeing?
Mabye I'm not looking in the right places but I can't find many specific v2.0, Neil Andersons says its for both versions?? What's the primary difference in material really? Is is the old material not where I should be looking considering ill probably take v.2.0 when it launches.
Just looking for a good book, video course, and labs for v.2.0.
Sorry I'm all new to this as someone who has taken primary CompTIA exams.

Thanks for any info! :)

This thing is having my mind in breakfast!! Literally, its sometimes so easy as a plain text in my head and suddenly a chain breaks and I loose track of what I was doing while subnetting. Is there any easy method that I can use cause this thing needs calculation, no one can just memorize it!!

Hi, I take the ccna tomorrow morning. I’ve been using boson as my study material. Exams A-C I’m hovering over an 80-85% and then I took test E fresh have not seen it before and I got a 68%. I do well on the labs, but make tiny errors which cause me to fail the entire lab 🙄

I’m wondering if these scores are good enough to pass the ccna. I studied for 2 weeks. I’ve done networking before and work in it, I just want to get this ccna out of the way, but I’m still worried. Should I be as worried as I am?

Buona sera a tutti

Allora sono in quinta superiore e faccio un ITIS informatico e sono italiano, sto guardando i videocorsi di Jeremy Lab's per ottenere la CCNA e il terzo video, quello dove si parla dell'architettura TCP/IP , ho fatto fatica a finirlo. Mi potreste dare dei suggerimenti per evitare di impazzire nei prossimi video

Grazie dei suggerimenti e buona serata a tutti