First, read the questions SLOWLY. Many vendors love to write questions for folks who read too fast. Most exams provide sufficient time in which to finish them. Take your time! Second, don't forget the process of elimination. Many are the times that I was able to "guess" the correct answer simply because the other possibilities were impossible. Typically, you will be able to easily eliminate all but two of the correct answers. Then you can focus your mental energy on the remaining two. Remember to get a good night's rest. Also, be relaxed! Finally, there is no substitute for knowing the material. In the case of the CCNA exam, you should either have access to routers and switches (preferably of the Catalyst 1900 series). If not, then purchase a decent simulator, such as the virtual lab e-trainer. Practice tests can only help you so much. The exams are rarely written in the same way as the practice tests. Know the material, and you'll do well! For a book, I would recommend Sybex's CCNA study guide. Now, on to my study notes... A general observation to made related to the 2.0 exam (640-507) as opposed to the 1.0 exam (640-407) is that it seems that Cisco has dropped many references to legacy systems in their exam prep literature. For example, I wouldn't worry too much about AppleTalk. But I would want to be up-to-snuff with IPX routing (because Novell still has a presence in the networking enterprise). Regarding exam length, Cisco appears to change the time limits and number of questions with regularity. High passing scores can be disconcerting, to be sure, but it usually means that the questions are clear and most folks are doing well on the exam. But this doesn't mean that you won't have "trick" questions, but that they are not that ambiguous (like Microsoft exams).. For all you MCSE-types, there should be a little overlap with the Networking Essentials exam and the TCP/IP exam, except with a little more intensity. You should be fairly acquainted with the OSI Model, and know how to subnet in your sleep! Gotta think binary, folks! Regarding the OSI Model, know the terms for the PDU (protocol data unit) at the various levels. At layer 4 they are called Segments, at layer 3 they are called Packets, at layer 2 they are called Frames, and at layer 1 they are referred to as Bits. Know what can happen to the data at the Presentation layer (e.g., ASCII and EBCDIC, JPG and MPG). The point is that it is the data structure that is changed here. Any encryption you use would also occur at the Presentation layer. The Session layer can be hard to correlate to networking. Know that it services the Presentation layer, and that it manages sessions between hosts. You will find NFS and SQL residing here, in addition to RPC. The Network and Data Link layer questions should be pretty easy to recognize. The buzz words for Network layer are "path" and "route" and "logical" addressing. Routers typically function at this layer, and also act as broadcast firewalls. The Data Link layer is where the MAC (hardware) address is found, and where the NIC, bridges, and switches operate. You should remember that there are 48 bits in a MAC addresses, with the first 24 bits identifying the vendor of the product and the last 24 bits being unique to that vendor ID. These 48 bits are usually expressed in a hexadecimal format with 12 characters, so an example of a valid MAC address might be 1234-5678-9ABC. As I mentioned, you should understand subnetting. If I gave you an IP address and its subnet mask, could you: tell me the subnet ID of that host, the last USABLE host on that subnet, in addition to the number of possible subnets and hosts per subnet. If you are weak in subnetting, then go to the learn-to-subnet website. Make sure you can subnet class B addresses as well!
Make sure you understand Access Lists, including knowing the ranges for the various standard and extended lists. For example, 1-99 is for IP standard lists, 100-199 is for IP extended lists, 800-899 is for IPX standard lists, and 900-999 is for extended IPX access lists. For IPX SAP filters, the range is 10001099. There is no substitute for hands-on experience here with routers, because most questions involved the use of commands. Don’t forget the implicit "Deny Any" traffic statement at the end of each list! Also, know the two ways to monitor the access lists you create: "show access-lists" and "show ip interface." If you see an extended access list, be careful that you don't get fooled by a statement that combines "IP" with "EQ port". TCP and UDP uses ports, bit IP doesn't! You might see several questions on the router’s IOS interface itself, including how to use the help command (i.e., "?"). Also, know your keyboard combinations, such as how to move back or forth a character or a word. Character commands start with a Ctrl (just like "character" starts with a "c") and word commands start with ESC. Also how do you look at your buffer history (show history) and how do you configure your history buffer (terminal history size)? And be sure you know the appearance of the router prompt for whatever configuration or command you are to enter. For example, router#(config-if) would be required of what types of configuration? And you can NEVER configure when the router prompt has a > in it! Also, you can't ping or use "show" commands in any of the configuration modes. You need to be in either user mode or privileged exec mode. You should know how to identify an IPX logical address (network.node). Know how to configure the basic encapsulations on a Cisco router – "novell-ether," "sap", "snap," and "arpa." Know what the "ipx-maximum paths" command does. Know also that routers do not forward SAP broadcasts but build their own SAP tables to be used for answering clients who do not have a server on their subnet. Understand how SAP filters are created and assigned to interfaces. Know how to turn on your routing protocols, such as RIP. When turning on IGRP, make sure you include an autonomous system number. Know the "boot system" command and how it works! Know also how to use a TFTP server for both IOS images and backup configurations. Know the difference between the clock rate and the bandwidth commands, and know their syntax. The clock rate command is when your router interface is functioning as a DCE. The bandwidth command is used to override the default bandwidth of the serial port (which is 1544) in order to serve as a metric for some routing protocols. Know how to enable the "banner of the day" feature. Remember how to use the end-of-message character. Be familiar with various IP diagnostics commands, such as ping, trace route, and telnet. Understand how ARP works. Know your WAN terminology, including the differences between DCE and DTE, and what "CO", "demarcation," and "CPE" mean. Be familiar with the advantages of PPP, such as authentication (using CHAP). Also, know that it is the LCP that is responsible for setting up a connection, and the NCP is used for negotiating a network transport protocol. Also, be familiar with the ISDN specification series (I, E, and Q). Know also the difference between BRI and PRI ISDN, and how the channels work. 2-B @ 64k and 1-D @16k = 144kbps. Remember that the D channel is for signaling. Pay attention to your questions. Are they asking for the total of the B channels (128) or the total for all BRI channels (144)?
One should know how to display configured DCLI’s on a frame-relay router. Type "sh frame-relay pvc." Also, if you do the "show interface serial" command after setting Frame-Relay encapsulation, you'll see a lot of stuff (such as LMI information). You should be familiar with the Catalyst 1900 Switch commands. The menu interface won't help you; you'll need to be familiar with the CLI. Know how to monitor the spanning tree protocol (STP). You must know the difference between cut-through and store-and-forward switching. Make sure you know how to configure a switch for VLANs, and know what frame tagging does!