part0026

Now that you are aware of what is included in the CCNA Routing and Switching examination let us look at how you can analyze where you stand concerning the curriculum. This book will help you understand everything you need to know about the examination, but this is not where it ends. You need to develop a study plan if you want to ensure that you ace the examination and clear it in your first attempt. This chapter will give you a four-week study plan that you can follow. Remember that you can clear your examination only if you follow the plan word for word.

When you choose to write the CCNA Routing and Switching examination, you must make some changes to your daily schedule since you need to spend some time studying for the examination. When you follow this study plan, you must complete at least two sections in the syllabus every week. Since there are numerous topics covered in each of these sections, you must spend at least four hours every day on the syllabus. If you have briefly read through the course material, you can identify the topics that will take you some time to master. You will also identify those topics where you will need to practice a little more.

If you choose to prepare for the routing and switching examination, you can undergo some training sessions provided by Cisco. You can find this training on the Global knowledge page. The instructors are people from the field who are well-read and know the concepts they are teaching. Most of the instructors are either recertifying themselves or taking the exam. They know exactly what one needs to do to clear the examination.

Since subnetting and binary networks are the most difficult topics for most students, you will need to cover these during the first week of your study plan. It would be best if you also went through some active sessions and training to improve your understanding. During this week, you will need to cover the following topics:

- When you go through each of these topics, you must ensure that you have enough time. You must spend at least three hours every day to work on the topics mentioned in this section. Make sure that you do not revise the topics now. If you have finished the course material very early, you can move onto the next topics in the syllabus. If you want to master these topics, you can watch different videos on the Cisco learning page to help you understand the capacities of every gadget used in the network. If you have time, you can also complete some practice tests on those topics.

Before you write the CCNA Routing and Switching examination, you must ensure that you clear the 640-840 examination. In this examination, you will need to cover a total of 76 subtopics. During the second week of your study plan, you should cover some of those 76 topics:

- Restoring, backing up, erasing and saving the IOS and configuration file, use of password recovery through a Cisco router, Cisco discovery and protocol and use of Telnet via IOS

- Basics of IP routing, understanding the operations of the same, default, dynamic and static routing, routing metrics and administrative details and classifying routing protocols

During this week, you should look at the protocols. You will need to cover the switching protocol and spanning tree, understanding the configuration and functioning for catalyst switch, STP, RSTP and Ether channels with Cisco additions, Rapid spanning and VLAN spanning, BPDU guard and filter, labs for Port and STP security, MAC addressing table, VLAN and VTP, types of VLANs and Ports, VLAN trunking and protocol, Cisco firewalls and Network security, VLAN configuration and routing, device management, secure communication and security for Layer 2.

This is the last week of your study plan. You must push yourself hard during this week if you want to achieve your goals. Make sure that you cover every topic in the study material, and understand the content thoroughly. You can practice everything you learn using different mock and practice tests that are available on the Internet and in the Cisco learning press. Since this is the last leg of your preparation, you will need to complete the following topics: access-list and secure communication, switch port and remote access, standard and extended access list, network translation address, dynamic and static configuration of NAT, WAN and NAT troubleshooting, VPN and frame relay, IP services and IOS Netflow, NAT and WAN troubleshooting, PPP concepts and configuration, IPv6 and encryption.

The Cisco Learning press releases some guides and study material for every examination version created. The content in these books will break the concept down into information that one can understand easily. These books will also provide some information that you may not have looked at in the beginning. It is also a good idea to go through some practice papers during this week and look for some discussion forums where people talk about some new questions they may have come across.