Ok, I think I got a bit off track in regards to my desire to obtain Cisco certifications.  I know that I definitely walked into that first test unprepared for the rigors of the subnetting exercises that I would have to go through.  Not being prepared for that step cost me valuable time that forced me to rush through other questions.  This time, I will not allow that to happen and will push myself much harder than I did before.  I also think that having real equipment to work on this time will also have an impact, but will not be as significant as the boning up I’ll need to on subnetting.

The first time around I used the Bryant Advantage certification materials.  I liked the materials and the writing style of the documents, but in all honesty, I found a quite a few grammatical errors which I felt were so obvious that it made me begin to question the quality of the content.  Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Bryant has put a lot of time and effort into this documentation, but for me it just didn’t cover the depth that I needed.  This time around, I’m going to focus on using Todd Lammle’s study guide along with the Cisco ICND1 and ICND2 books.  I’ll probably also refer to the Bryant documentation along the way as well.

In terms of time for the next test, I’m going to spend some time studying the calendar to nail down the correct date for my next test date.  I’ll have that posted shortly, but I would welcome any comments on how long most people gave themselves to nail down this material.