Hello. I’m a new member and I joined this site to help in my preparation for the CCNP Route exam. I was using the Ciscopress book by Kevin Wallace to help but it became apparent to me that I’m not really going to be able to use that book as it is a difficult read and I find myself losing focus as I’m reading. I’m hoping this site will help me prepare for the exam without having to read that book. Wish me luck! Thank you.
Good Luck Mike and all the best !!
Welcome Mike! The Cisco press books can be pretty difficult to start with. If you still want to read it, try it after working your way through our material and it will be much easier to understand.
Good luck studying!
Rene
Thank you! I probably won’t even go back to that book. It’s not that it’s hard it’s just that it’s so verbose I find myself falling asleep. This is the only Ciscopress book that’s been this dry.
Hi Rene,
I have gone through the materials almost and they are amazing by using simple explanation. I need to give CCNA/CCNP and even CCIE exams soon. According your experience I need your guidance in terms of tricks, time management, self test sites and so on. I have 5 years of industry experience , just need to have professional certificates.
Hope to have your consultation.
Hi Faisal,
I’m glad to hear you like my work 
Do you intend on doing all exams? CCNA is a prerequisite for CCNP but for CCIE, you only need to pass the CCIE written exam before you can do the lab.
CCIE is another league on its own so if you want to get the CCNA/CCNP certificates, just focus for now on CCNA first. Doing CCNA and CCNP alone is already a lot of work and CCIE is another league on its own.
Let me know where you want to start and I’ll give you some more background information.
Good luck studying!
Rene
Rene, I already have the CCNA and took the CCNP Switch exam. I tried using the book from Ciscopress and only made it through 9 chapters until I came to the realization I’m going to pick up what I need from that “overly verbose” book (IMHO). Anyhow, I bought the network simulator from Boson to help with the hands-on experience I need. I know I could have used GNS3 but decided that this network simulator already comes with built-in labs so I went that route. I’m planning on using this site and those labs to get me ready for CCNP Route. Does this sound like an adequate study plan to you? Should I supplement with anything else?
Hi Rene,
I would like to start CCNA exam first. Plz guide me regarding your experience. I am well prepared and i have 5 year industry experience just fearing of how the paper would be. Should i go Boson NetSim, 9tut, or other stuffs ?
Thank you.
Hi Faisal,
Is this the first Cisco exam you tried? Here’s an example of what the exams look like:
I personally haven’t used Boson before but I’m not a big fan of simulators. Boson and packet tracer are both simulators, all CCNA R&S commands are supported but when you just want to try something outside of the curriculum, it’s possible that it doesn’t work. I prefer an emulator (which runs real IOS) or real hardware:
Boson NetSim does include labs (and practice questions) I think so that might be nice. You can also find a lot of CCNA R&S labs on my other website for free (https://gns3vault.com).
At the moment, it’s difficult to find decent practice questions. I can’t recommend something like 9tut because those are braindump questions. Braindumping really doesn’t help you to get any further…Cisco offers the measure up practice questions through their website but I’m not sure if those questions are similar to the real exam:
You might want to research that a bit, see if anyone that has bought it recommends it or not.
The best advice I can probably give you is just to focus on the technology, walk through all material, lab everything, try everything so you understand how it works. If you do, it doesn’t matter what kind of questions they throw at you.
Rene