This section helps you to determine your readiness for the Cisco Certified Network Associate certification exam. You will be invited to assess your own skills, motivations, education, and experience and see how you compare against the thousands of CCNA candidates we have met.
The Cisco Certified Network Associate remains one of the most popular certifications in the IT industry. Although Cisco does not publish certification statistics for CCNA, it is safe to say that thousands of new CCNAs are minted each year from all over the world. In the face of a backlash against so-called “paper-only” certification holders, Cisco has worked hard to maintain the credibility of its certifications by making them difficult to achieve, as well as ensuring that the exams test not only their own products and services, but also general networking knowledge. In the past few years, Cisco has added router and switch simulators to computer-based tests to test the applied knowledge of candidates, and we can expect this trend to continue. A Cisco certification is still the gold standard for networking professionals.
A candidate who has passed the CCNA has demonstrated three significant capabilities:
A mastery of technical knowledge—. The successful CCNA candidate knows the technical material and has an elevated level of retention and accuracy. The CCNA exam has a pass mark of 849 out of 1,000. Very little room for technical error exists. Successful candidates know their stuff.
A demonstrated ability to apply the technical knowledge—. The addition of simulator questions has greatly reduced the possibility that a candidate can simply memorize all the information and pass the exam. A CCNA is supposed to be able to apply basic router and switch configurations; the simulator questions help prove that the candidate can do so.
The ability to perform under pressure—. The CCNA exam(s) require that you proceed at a fairly rapid pace, spending about one minute per question on average. Many candidates find that they have little time left when they finish, and indeed many run out of time altogether—and some fail as a result. Add to this the stress of being in an exam environment, the potential of having an employer’s performance expectations, personal expectations, and possibly financial or career implications pressuring you as well, and the exam turns into a pressure cooker. All of this is intimidating—and unfortunate for the unprepared—so be prepared.
Imagine yourself as an employer looking for a junior networking professional. You want someone who knows their stuff, who can reliably do the actual work of setting up and configuring equipment, and who can do all that under the pressures of time, screaming bosses and customers, and critical deadlines. Enter the successful CCNA candidate.
Other than a photographic memory, typing speed that would make Mavis Beacon jealous, and nerves of steel, what makes for the “ideal” CCNA candidate? A combination of skills and experience is the short answer. The successful candidates we have seen—and we have seen thousands from classes that we have taught—had a good mix of the following traits:
Motivation—. Why are you taking the CCNA? Here are some of the most common answers to this question that we have seen:
Because I want to further my career and get a promotion.
To expand my knowledge; I’m interested in it.
My job is changing, and the company needs me to get the certification.
I am unemployed and/or starting a new career.
The company needs more Cisco-certified people to gain a certain partner status as a reseller.
We’re just burning the training budget for this year.
I’ve heard that the computer industry is a good field and that a CCNA guarantees you $85,000 a year.
So what motivates you? Who is paying for the training and exams? What are the implications if you fail? Successful candidates are highly motivated. If you don’t care, your chances of passing drop tremendously.
An interest in learning and an ability to learn—. Passing a CCNA exam requires taking on board a great deal of new information, much of it obscure and without a referential pattern to make it easier to recall. Candidates who have acquired the skills to do this—and rest assured, these are skills that can be learned—will do better than those who have trouble retaining information. Candidates who simply enjoy learning will find it easier and will do better as a result.
If you have trouble retaining and recalling information quickly and accurately, you will find CCNA certification a difficult thing to achieve. This book is not aimed at teaching you these skills; other books are. In the absence of the ability to learn and retain quickly, patience and persistence are a good substitute. If it takes you a year to pass, you have still passed.
A decent background in IP networking—. “Decent” is intentionally vague. We have seen candidates with little experience succeed and candidates with extensive experience fail. Experience is not a guarantee, but it absolutely helps. Many CCNA questions test the basics of networking; many others assume that you know the basics and incorporate the requirement of that knowledge into a more advanced question—the old “question-within-a-question” trick. As a guideline, if you have been involved with business-class networks for about a year, you will probably have absorbed enough knowledge to give you an advantage when it comes to the basics. After a certain point, experience can be a weakness: In the immortal words of Han Solo, “Don’t get cocky.” If you think that CCNA will be easy because you have 10 years of experience, you are in for a rude awakening.
Now is the time to take a close look at your education, experience, motivation, and abilities. It’s worth being honest with yourself; being aware of your weaknesses is as important as being aware of your strengths. Maybe you know someone who can help you with an objective assessment—a friend, a teacher, or an HR person perhaps. Above all, realize that the following questions and comments simply summarize our experience with CCNA candidates. That experience is pretty solid; we have taught CCNA to more than a thousand people. By the same token, though, there is no magic formula; every person is a different story. Your best plan is to be as prepared as you can be in all respects. Now, time to look inward...
Although in theory anyone can attempt the CCNA exam, in reality some are better prepared than others. Educational background forms a big part of this preparation. These questions will help to identify education and training that will be of benefit:
It is the rare individual who really understands networks but has never built, broken, and then rebuilt one. For the CCNA exam, a certain amount of hands-on experience is a must. The new simulator questions require you to actually type in router configurations. Ask yourself the following:
Does your job allow you to work with Cisco routers and switches on a regular basis?
Is there a lab where you can practice? Perhaps at home with borrowed or purchased gear?
How long have you been working with Cisco equipment?
Are you completely fluent in subnetting?
At a minimum, you should get a simulator that includes lab exercises for you to practice key skills. If you have access to a lab and equipment you can play with, as you become more advanced, you can build more complicated and realistic test networks.
The major skill areas you need hands-on experience in are
Basic configuration: IP addresses, passwords
Subnetting
Dynamic routing protocol configuration
NAT/PAT (network/port address translation)
Basic WAN protocols and configuration
Switching, VLANs, VLAN Trunking Protocol, trunking
IP access lists
As you think about those areas, picture yourself in front of a Cisco router and assess your level of confidence in being able to quickly and correctly configure it. You should feel no intimidation or uncertainty in being able to tackle these kinds of configurations. Subnetting in particular is heavily emphasized and is one of the main areas where people have difficulty. You must be totally, unequivocally confident with subnetting or you will face a serious challenge on your exam.
The CCNA exam will demand a high degree of technical accuracy, applied skill, and the ability to perform quickly under pressure. You can give yourself experience in this environment by practicing on an exam simulator until you are comfortable. You must become technically accurate to about 90–95%, have no difficulty with the simulator tasks, and be able to complete the exam in the appropriate time frame. This can be achieved by repetition, but be careful that you do not simply memorize all the questions in the test pool!
There are three “pillars” of success on the CCNA exam: technical excellence, applied skills, and the ability to perform under pressure. Technical excellence is achieved with study, training, and self-testing. Applied skills are learned through practice labs and exams, work experience, and hands-on training and experience. The ability to perform under pressure is gained from situational training such as exam simulators and challenge labs, perhaps with a trainer or mentor. The goal is to increase your confidence level so that you feel as if you own the material and want to be challenged to a duel by the exam.
With a combination of educational and work experience, CCNA-specific training, self-study and hands-on practice, you will put yourself in the best position to approach the exam with a high degree of confidence—and pass. Good luck; study hard.