Can anyone help me out with A+, N+, CCNA, and CCNP questions?

[jamesey]

How much money and how long did your training take for A+, N+, CCNA, and CCNP?

can anyone recommend some good schools or books?

How difficult is each of these?

 

[Aves]

I did the CCNA through the Cisco Network Academy at a local college. It's good if you have about a half a year to waste, and a good instructor. Luckily I had both. The total cost was around $600, mainly because it was a community college. I also used the CCNA Study Guide from Sybex. It's not really that difficult.

 

[fivepesos]

my high school offered a CCNA training course, so free for me. the test is about ~$90 and most people pass it the first time. if you know basic networking dont bother with comptia certs (A+ and N+), they are very novice oriented. the cisco curriculum is self-paced web-based training. but everyone i know burnt the curriculum to a cd. if you know someone who has been trained i suspect they have a copy.

sybex book by lamale (sp?) was very good for prep. to pass the test, you realy need access to a router. just borrow one if u can. i spent about 10 hours doing every command in the sybex book and i passed fairly easily.

 

[jleon]

There's also a book and software out there that you can purchase called Virtual Lab or something like that, which will simiulate router interface for you to practice for your exam. g'luck!

 

[fargus]

Check www.routersim.com

 

[187]

cisco high school instructors are so unqualified, i havent met a competent one yet. i have personally witnessed how unprepared and unqualified they are. personally i think the A+ curriculum is easier. in highschool, the CCNA training is webbased. but its of no use if you dont have any actual habds on work spliciing wires, setting up networks, programming routers etc... i have a friend of mine that spent 1500 on cisco classes.

 

[bignick]

I studied for about two weeks for my A+. Used the cramsession.com summary, and the exam cram book. Did the same thing for my Network+ , except I also read the exam cram practice exams.

 

[Darein]

I was in the Cisco Networking Academy for a year and a half during high school and it didn't help me all that much. The online study stuff supposedly from Cisco didn't help to prepare me at all for the test. I basically just read a book and did a little hands on stuff directly with the schools network administrator to learn the wiring and stuff. I didn't really think the CCNA was all that hard. A+ didn't seem that hard. I never took the time to learn it all the way, but from the books the class was using it was some more or less basic computer knowledge. DOS, fixing computers, sizes of stuff, booting type stuff, lots of memorization.

 

[LANMAN]

- A+ passed without cracking a book
- N+ passed without cracking a book, but it was in beta too then.
- I don't know about the CCNA or CCNP, but it is a good skill to have depending who your going to work for and how much you use your skills.


I have to agree with fivepesos, the first two are very "beginngerish", but the Network+ does cover quite a range of network questions. I have heard of some people just skimming through a A+ book and only stopping to read those sections they didn't understand a whole lot, but then again if you did that, would you really feel like you accomplished something passing the test? (ie..paper certified A+, no hands-on experience)

Just my .02,

--LANMAN