09-26-2025, 12:48 AM
Hello Everyone,
As of 9/25/2025 2:53pm EST I passed my exam. I would like to give a special thanks to chewosaurus their advice help greatly.
The material I used were the following:
if your goal is to learn and understand how to do this stuff see below:
Dynamips is a great resource. The eve-ng full back is very great. it gives a bunch of virtualize equipment to play with. literally you get over 10k worth of stuff for 99 or 50 bucks ( if it's on sale). The support guy David is very helpful and ali is great. He sends weekly email blogs ever Tuesday. It's motivating.
Networklessons.com made a difference for me. Anything I did not know and understand it filled in those gaps.
Now, If you have the dough to blow I highly recommend getting the first three. Eve ng is wonderful and it feels like live equipment ( even the glitching and stupid cpu behaviors ). However, if you don't got that much money see below:
Use this site! if you are a forum surfer and have not purchase the 2 month sub. I highly recommend you do. See my points below:
Secondly go to networklessons.com pay the one dollar trial. CANCEL IMMIDIATELY!!! so you won't get auto charged...go to the 300-410 course. copy and paste everything into word, google docs, heck text document if you don't have a free source. review, review, review and review until your brain begs you to stop! Nonetheless, I still highly recommend subbing for a year. (Rene from network lessons if you are on this site! i am sorry! but looking out for the less fortunate here!)
Now if you made it this far here is what, I also learned from my exam experience and cisco experience...Please read below:
First I never explained my experience. I have two CCNA's one from the routing and switching days and one from the current times, ENCOR certi, and now this one. I am going to write this in big letters... READ THE TOPICS OF THE EXAM!!! It may seem simple and stupid but it's key. Cisco's goal is to make sure candidates know and understand what their doing. They want to make sure when you walk out with a cert you know what your doing without training. Key points on the topics:
The first two bullet points is key why? I've taken this exam twice...and i did not run into the same lab. The first time i took the exam i had the following:
Second time I had the exam I had the following
If forum support reads this. I recommend making labs for what I post below:
Reason why is cisco is starting to add questions and labs unannounced. Also, the 14 labs on the sims is not enough. If I can encounter labs that reflect these topics then anyone else can. I believe add additional labs that relate these topics will help increase the odds of future customers / community members on this site. Please consider it!!
Finally how long should one study for this exam? I studied for a total of 4 months...and when i mean 4 months i mean 640 hours give or take...none stop 40 hours a week with very little breaks and I barely passed...i am not ashamed to admit this and Yes, unhealthy... For studying I honestly recommend longer...maybe 8 months because cisco is going to change the exams on a yearly bases ( small changes, big changes every 3 years). Spend one month labbing and studying EIGRP until you understand it and get sick of it, one month for ospf, one month for bgp ( actually I recommend two. hint everything in BGP is manual you tell it what to do. it wouldn't anything on its on unlike IGP), one month for redistribution ( yes, get familiar with RIP because you'll see it!) one month for DMVPN, one month on services, one month access-list because boy how cisco loves throwing that in your face like you owe them money!, and etc. I can go on.
in conclusion, take your time, if you can't and you need it then do what I did and kill yourself for it. However, having a stroke is not worth it and yes...I am talking from experience.... I hope my advice and recommendation helps. I will be moving on to SCOR and wireless.
P.S: I know my grammar sucks, be merciful.
Regards,
As of 9/25/2025 2:53pm EST I passed my exam. I would like to give a special thanks to chewosaurus their advice help greatly.
The material I used were the following:
- This site test questions and sims ( the GNS3 here) total 40 bucks
- Dynamips.io Eve-ng full pack 99 bucks (50 bucks if it's on sale)
- Networklessons.com (one dollar for the trial for 7 days, 39 a month for a sub)
- Boson ( i had bought this 2 years ago so i have it permanently, before they went left and made it sub based)
- OSG from pearson ( i really don't recommend this )
- Cisco white pages
- examtopics ( don't use this site it's over priced and steals 70 percent of the questions and labs from this site!)
if your goal is to learn and understand how to do this stuff see below:
Dynamips is a great resource. The eve-ng full back is very great. it gives a bunch of virtualize equipment to play with. literally you get over 10k worth of stuff for 99 or 50 bucks ( if it's on sale). The support guy David is very helpful and ali is great. He sends weekly email blogs ever Tuesday. It's motivating.
Networklessons.com made a difference for me. Anything I did not know and understand it filled in those gaps.
Now, If you have the dough to blow I highly recommend getting the first three. Eve ng is wonderful and it feels like live equipment ( even the glitching and stupid cpu behaviors ). However, if you don't got that much money see below:
Use this site! if you are a forum surfer and have not purchase the 2 month sub. I highly recommend you do. See my points below:
- they give you GNS3 environment. All you have to do is just step up virtualization on your pc, laptop, linux if your cute or dare I say...mac OS. jokes a side
- how2pass test questions and labs are accurate for now...I encountered half the questions on the live exam. I encountered two of the labs both times, I've taken the exam.
- This site has forum support and they are helpful, also the community here is somewhat active and willing to help. I also, part of this community and willing to share my experience.
Secondly go to networklessons.com pay the one dollar trial. CANCEL IMMIDIATELY!!! so you won't get auto charged...go to the 300-410 course. copy and paste everything into word, google docs, heck text document if you don't have a free source. review, review, review and review until your brain begs you to stop! Nonetheless, I still highly recommend subbing for a year. (Rene from network lessons if you are on this site! i am sorry! but looking out for the less fortunate here!)
Now if you made it this far here is what, I also learned from my exam experience and cisco experience...Please read below:
First I never explained my experience. I have two CCNA's one from the routing and switching days and one from the current times, ENCOR certi, and now this one. I am going to write this in big letters... READ THE TOPICS OF THE EXAM!!! It may seem simple and stupid but it's key. Cisco's goal is to make sure candidates know and understand what their doing. They want to make sure when you walk out with a cert you know what your doing without training. Key points on the topics:
- If it says troubleshoot there is a lab
- If it says configure there is most certainly a lab
- if it says describe it's multiple choice
The first two bullet points is key why? I've taken this exam twice...and i did not run into the same lab. The first time i took the exam i had the following:
- Dmvpn with ipsec lab ( same as this site )
- AAA and access-list lab ( different from this site)
- SNMP lab ( different from this site)
- bgp lab ( entirely different from what this site had)
- 49 multi choice questions
Second time I had the exam I had the following
- simple DMVPN lab ( on this site i think it's DMVPN lab one? it's the one where you have to configure hub and spoke phase 2 without ipsec)
- AAA and access-list lab ( same topology to the one on this site different task)
- Logging and snmp lab ( same as this site )
- DHCP, NETFLOW, IP SLA lab
- 46 multiple choose
If forum support reads this. I recommend making labs for what I post below:
- 4.1 Troubleshoot device management
- 4.1.a Console and VTY
- 4.1.b Telnet, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, SCP
- 4.1.c (T)FTP
- 4.1.a Console and VTY
- 4.2 Troubleshoot SNMP (v2c, v3)
- 4.3 Troubleshoot network problems using logging (local, syslog, debugs, conditional debugs, timestamps, telemetry)
- 4.4 Troubleshoot IPv4 and IPv6 DHCP (DHCP client, IOS DHCP server, DHCP relay, DHCP options)
- 4.5 Troubleshoot network performance issues using IP SLA (jitter, tracking objects, delay, connectivity)
- 4.6 Troubleshoot NetFlow (v9, flexible NetFlow, Ipfix)
- 4.7 Troubleshoot network problems using Cisco Catalyst Center Assurance (formerly Cisco DNA Center) (connectivity, monitoring, device health, network health)
Reason why is cisco is starting to add questions and labs unannounced. Also, the 14 labs on the sims is not enough. If I can encounter labs that reflect these topics then anyone else can. I believe add additional labs that relate these topics will help increase the odds of future customers / community members on this site. Please consider it!!
Finally how long should one study for this exam? I studied for a total of 4 months...and when i mean 4 months i mean 640 hours give or take...none stop 40 hours a week with very little breaks and I barely passed...i am not ashamed to admit this and Yes, unhealthy... For studying I honestly recommend longer...maybe 8 months because cisco is going to change the exams on a yearly bases ( small changes, big changes every 3 years). Spend one month labbing and studying EIGRP until you understand it and get sick of it, one month for ospf, one month for bgp ( actually I recommend two. hint everything in BGP is manual you tell it what to do. it wouldn't anything on its on unlike IGP), one month for redistribution ( yes, get familiar with RIP because you'll see it!) one month for DMVPN, one month on services, one month access-list because boy how cisco loves throwing that in your face like you owe them money!, and etc. I can go on.
in conclusion, take your time, if you can't and you need it then do what I did and kill yourself for it. However, having a stroke is not worth it and yes...I am talking from experience.... I hope my advice and recommendation helps. I will be moving on to SCOR and wireless.
P.S: I know my grammar sucks, be merciful.
Regards,