Recently passed ICND1, studying for ICND2 exam..

[pogue]

I was a CCNA before, expired in 2004. I am currently unemployed, but with enough savings to study and certify for up to a year.

I passed the ICND1 with a 916 and 30 minutes left.

That being said..Just the ICND1 test alone, was IMHO, harder than the whole CCNA test I took back in 2001!!

I have a 5 2500 series router, 2 2950 switch lab that I used to prepare for the test, along with Todd's CCNA guide and the "other" guide on the market..

I felt reasonably well prepared for the exam, but when the test started, I was like, "Woah.. This is a LOT tougher than when I took the CCNA a long time ago.

For those that are studying for the CCNA, I would HIGHLY recommend you follow Todd's advice and get a small lab set up. Getting a Cisco certification is a fairly big commitment of time, so don't sell yourself short.

I hae actually worked with Cisco routers before in a small production environment, and I swear..If not for my strong troubleshooting skills, I would have been dead meat on the CCENT. I only took 2 weeks to go though my CCENT studies, as I thought that would be enough to prepare me for the "easy CCENT part."

I now realize why Todd has been saying the new CCNA is a tough exam, even though he has many higher Cisco certs... This new CCNA actually TESTS whether you can go into a production environment and not do too badly.

Russ