Your Study Plan

You just got this book. You have probably already read (or quickly skimmed) the Introduction. You are probably now wondering whether to start reading here or skip ahead to Chapter 1, “Implementing Ethernet Virtual LANs.”

Stop for a moment to read this section about how to create your own study plan for the exam(s) you plan to take (ICND1 100-105, ICND2 200-105, and/or CCNA 200-125). Your study will go much better if you take time (maybe 15 minutes) to think about a few key points about how to study before starting on this journey. That is what this section will help you do.

The challenge of these exams comes from many angles. Each of these exams covers a lot of concepts and many commands specific to Cisco devices. Beyond knowledge, these Cisco exams also require deep skills. You must be able to analyze and predict what really happens in a network. You must be able to configure Cisco devices to work correctly in those networks. And you must be ready to troubleshoot problems when the network does not work correctly.

The more challenging questions on these exams work a lot like a jigsaw puzzle, but with four out of every five puzzle pieces not even in the room. To solve the puzzle, you have to mentally re-create the missing pieces. To do that, you must know each networking concept and remember how the concepts work together.

For instance, the ICND2 exam includes many troubleshooting topics, like troubleshooting for Open Shortest Path Version 2 (OSPFv2). OSPFv2 might fail to form a neighbor relationship with another neighboring router. But a more exam-realistic question would make you think about why a router is missing a route, and that symptom might have a root cause related to OSPF neighbors. Then the question might supply some parts of what you would need to know, like some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, as represented with the white pieces in Figure 1. You have to apply your knowledge of IP routing and OSPF theory to the facts to come up with some of the other pieces of the puzzle.

Figure 1 Filling In Puzzle Pieces with Your Analysis Skills

These skills require that you prepare by doing more than just reading and memorizing what you read. Of course, you need to read many pages in this book to learn many individual facts and how these facts relate to each other. But a big part of this book lists exercises beyond reading, exercises that help you build the skills to solve these networking puzzles.

The good news here is that the book is designed with obvious breakpoints and built-in extensive review activities. In short, the book is more of a study system than a book.

So the first step in your Study Plan is to visualize the book not as one large book, but as 7 parts. Then, within each part, visualize an average of 4 chapters. Your study plan has you work through the chapters in each part, and then review the material in that part before moving on, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 7 Parts, with an Average of 4 Chapters Each, with Part Reviews

Now your plan has the following:

1 large task: Read and master all content in the book.

7 medium tasks/book: Read and master a part.

4 small tasks/part: Read and master a chapter.

Each chapter follows the same design with three parts, as shown in Figure 3. The chapter pre-quiz (called a “Do I Know This Already?” quiz, or simply DIKTA quiz) helps you decide how much time to spend reading versus skimming the core of the chapter, called the Foundation Topics. The “Chapter Review” section then gives you instructions about how to study and review what you just read.

Figure 3 Suggested Approach to Each Chapter

The book has only a few long chapters, on purpose. They average 22 pages for the Foundation Topics. By keeping the size reasonable, you can complete all of a chapter in one or two short study sessions. Go into each study session that begins a new chapter thinking that you have a chance to complete the chapter, or at least make a great start on it. And if you do not have enough time, look for the major headings inside the chapter—each chapter has two to three major headings, and those make a great place to stop reading when you need to wait to complete the reading in the next study session.

The Chapter Review tasks are very important to your exam-day success. Doing these tasks, and doing them at the end of the chapter, really does help you get ready. Do not put off using these tasks until later! The chapter-ending Chapter Review tasks help you with the first phase of deepening your knowledge and skills of the key topics, remembering terms, and linking the concepts together in your brain so that you can remember how it all fits together. The following list describes most of the activities you will find in the “Chapter Review” sections:

Review key topics

Review key terms

Answer DIKTA questions

Do labs

Review memory tables

Review config checklists

Review command tables

Check out the section titled “Find Review Activities on the Web and DVD” later in this planning section for more details.

Plan time to do the Part Review task at the end of each part, using the Part Review elements found at the end of each part. You should expect to spend about as much time on one Part Review as you would on one entire chapter, or maybe a little more for some parts. So in terms of planning your time, think of the Part Review itself as another chapter.

Figure 4 lists the names of the parts in this book, with some color coding. Note that Parts II, IV, and V are the parts specific to IPv4. Parts I and III have to do with LANs and WANs, respectively. The top of the figure shows the final two parts of the book, with Part VI about IPv6, and Part VII about a few miscellaneous topics: network management, cloud, and network programmability. Each part ends with a “Part Review” section of 2 to 4 pages, with notes about what tools and activities to use.

Figure 4 Parts as Major Milestones

Chapter Review and Part Review differ in some ways. Chapter Review tasks tend to provide a lot of context, so you can focus on mentally adding a specific piece of knowledge, or practicing a specific skill. Part Review activities instead remove a lot of the context, more like real life and the real exams. Removing that context means that you have to exercise your own knowledge and skills. The result: You uncover your weaknesses. The better you become at uncovering weaknesses, and then learning what you are missing in that area, the better prepared you will be for the exam.

The “Part Review” sections use the following kinds of tools in additional to some of the same tools used for Chapter Review:

Mind maps

Part Review questions with PCPT

Labs

Also, consider setting a goal date for finishing each part of the book (and a reward, as well). Plan a break, some family time, some time out exercising, eating some good food, whatever helps you get refreshed and motivated for the next part.

The “Final Review” chapter has two major goals. First, it helps you further develop the analysis skills you need to answer the more complicated questions on the exam. Many questions require that you connect ideas about concepts, configuration, verification, and troubleshooting. The closer you get to taking the exam, the less reading you should do, and the more you should do other learning activities; this chapter’s tasks give you activities to further develop these skills.

The tasks in the “Final Review” chapter also help you uncover your weak areas. This final element gives you repetition with high-challenge exam questions, uncovering any gaps in your knowledge. Many of the questions are purposefully designed to test your knowledge of the most common mistakes and misconceptions, helping you avoid some of the common pitfalls people experience with the actual exam.

While making lists of tasks may or may not appeal to you, depending on your personality, goal setting can help everyone studying for these exams. And to do the goal setting, you need to know what tasks you plan to do.

As for the list of tasks to do when studying, you do not have to use a detailed task list. (You could list every single task in every chapter-ending “Chapter Review” section, every task in the Part Reviews, and every task in the “Final Review” chapter.) However, listing the major tasks can be enough.

You should track at least two tasks for each typical chapter: reading the “Foundation Topics” section and doing the Chapter Review at the end of the chapter. And, of course, do not forget to list tasks for Part Reviews and Final Review. Table 1 shows a sample for Part I of this book.

Table 1 Sample Excerpt from a Planning Table

Use your goal dates as a way to manage your study, and not as a way to get discouraged if you miss a date. Pick reasonable dates that you can meet. When setting your goals, think about how fast you read and the length of each chapter’s “Foundation Topics” section, as listed in the table of contents. Then, when you finish a task sooner than planned, move up the next few goal dates.

If you miss a few dates, do not start skipping the tasks listed at the ends of the chapters! Instead, think about what is impacting your schedule—real life, commitment, and so on—and either adjust your goals or work a little harder on your study.

This edition is the first Cisco Press certification guide to offer a large set of apps to use instead of the traditional study features. The Introduction’s section titled “A Big New Feature: Review Applications” details some of the reasons.

I encourage you to go ahead and access the book’s companion website to find the review apps and explore. Also, spin the DVD, and find the review apps there. Both methods organize the review activities by chapter and by part.

Note that this book includes the traditional methods of review as well, with instructions in the book, and matching PDF appendixes in some cases. For instance, all the Key Topics can be reviewed from the companion website and just by flipping pages in the book—you choose which works better for you.

You already know about half the topics well, through prior experience or study.

You have already proven that you are excellent at learning through self-study.

Otherwise, in my opinion, you would be better off taking the two-exam path. First, there are no cost savings for most people with the one-exam path. Check the exam prices in your country, for ICND1, ICND2, and CCNA, and then make some comparisons. Assume you pass the tests on the first try: traditionally, the cost is identical for both the ICND1 + ICND2 path and the CCNA path. Or, assume that you fail each exam once: again, the costs are identical.

Next, consider the number of topics. From a content perspective, CCNA = ICND1 + ICND2. So, both paths require learning the same content.

Next, which would you rather have done in school: take an exam over a single semester’s material, or an exam covering the whole year? It is just harder to prepare for an exam that covers more material, so the two-exam path again has an advantage.

Finally, the most compelling reason for the two-exam path is that you probably have no experience with Cisco exams yet. I hope you have a chance to pass many Cisco exams during your career. The two-exam path gets you to that first exam attempt sooner, and the exam experience teaches you things about the exam and yourself that no study tool can teach you.

If you do plan to take the 200-125 CCNA R&S exam, you have a couple of study options. First, to be clear: The 200-125 CCNA exam covers the topics in the combined ICND1 and ICND2 books. So, using both the ICND1 and ICND2 books covers everything for the 200-125 CCNA R&S exam. The only question is when to read each part of the two books. You have two reasonable options when going with the one-exam option:

Complete all the ICND1 book, then move on to the ICND2 book.

Move back and forth between the ICND1 and ICND2 books, by part, based on topics, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 Alternate Reading Plan for CCNA: Moving Between Books by Part

The first option is pretty obvious, but the second one is less obvious. Figure 5 shows a study plan in which you complete the Ethernet Parts in the ICND1, then the Ethernet Part in ICND2. Similarly, you complete the IPv4 Parts in ICND1, then ICND2, and then the IPv6 Part in both books, and then the final part in both books.

Personally, I am a fan of completing the ICND1 book completely, and then moving on to the ICND2 book. However, for those of you with a large amount of experience already, this alternate reading plan may work well.

Register (for free) at the Cisco Learning Network (CLN, http://learningnetwork.cisco.com) and join the CCENT/CCNA R&S study group. This group allows you to both lurk and participate in discussions about topics related to the ICND1 exam, ICND2 exam, and CCNA R&S exam. Register, join the groups, and set up an email filter to redirect the messages to a separate folder. Even if you do not spend time reading all the posts as they arrive, later, when you have time to read, you can browse through the posts to find interesting topics (or just search the posts from the CLN website).

Explore the electronic elements of this book, as detailed in the Introduction’s section titled “How to Get the Electronic Elements of This Book.” That includes the installation of the PCPT and Sim Lite software.

Also find my blog site as listed in the Introduction, and bookmark the pages that list the Config Labs, to have those handy for later study. (The URL is http://blog.certskills.com/ccna/category/hands-on/config-lab.)