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Multilayer Switched Networks (BCMSN) courses. If you can answer a high percentage of the questions in
this book, you should be ready for those courses.
Strategies for Exam Preparation
The strategy you use for CCNA preparation might be slightly different than strategies used by other readers,
mainly based on the skills, knowledge, and experience you already have obtained. For instance, if you have
attended Cisco's Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices (ICND) course, then you will need to take a
slightly different approach compared to someone who has learned Cisco knowledge via on-the-job training.
Chapter 1, "All About the Cisco Certified Network Associate Certification," includes a strategy that should
closely match your background.
Regardless of the strategy you use or the background you have, the book is designed to help you get to the
point where you can pass the exam with the least amount of time required. For instance, there is no need for
you to practice or read about IP addressing and subnetting if you fully understand it already. However, many
people like to make sure that they truly know a topic and thus read over material that they already know.
Several book features will help you gain the confidence that you need to be convinced that you know some
material already, and to also help you know what topics you need to study more.
How This Book Is Organized
Although this book could be read cover-to-cover, it is designed to be flexible and allow you to easily move
between chapters and sections of chapters to cover just the material that you need more work with. Chapter
1 provides an overview of the CCNA certification, and offers some strategies for how to prepare for the
exam. Chapters 2 through 8 are the core chapters and can be covered in any order. If you do intend to read
them all, the order in the book is an excellent sequence to use. Chapter 9, "Scenarios for Final Preparation,"
provides many scenarios that will help you review and refine your knowledge, without giving you a false
sense of preparedness that you would get with simply reviewing a set of multiple-choice questions.
The core chapters, Chapters 2 through 8, cover the following topics:
·
Chapter 2, "Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS) Fundamentals"
· The IOS is the software that runs on a variety of Cisco products, particularly in routers and in some
LAN switches. This chapter covers many of the features and functions of the IOS, as well as its
command-line interface (CLI). Also included in this chapter are details about router hardware.
·
Chapter 3, "OSI Reference Model & Layered Communication"
· The OSI reference model is mainly used today for comparison to other protocol architectures. The
purposes and meanings behind the use of a layered model are discussed in this chapter. The features
typically implemented at the various layers also are covered, and example protocols for each layer are
given. Much of this information is conceptual and is not necessarily needed in order to implement
networks, but it is covered on the exam.
Also covered in Chapter 3 are the concepts involved in typical operation of the OSI network and data
link layers. This conceptual discussion is vital to complete understanding of OSI Layer 2 and Layer
3 operation.
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