I got an email from INE (mainly known for cybersecurity certs) going over some of the changes to expect from the CCNA. It said that the new CCNA will prioritize troubleshooting the concepts you are learning. AI will be a bigger part of the exam as well as an expectation of deeper analysis during scenario driven questions.

Is there any information available on the expectation of how much harder the new exam will be? I intend on doing the current exam but in the event something happens and I don't pass in time I want to have an idea of what to expect.

Additionally what are the thought on these changes? Should the exam be harder? on average people studying the CCNA put in roughly 300 hours of study time with estimates of the fail rate being over 50% already. Whether that's true or just hearsay remains to be seen.

However, for reference the LSAT (the test to be admitted to law school) has study time averages estimated between 150-300 hours. While the MCAT, (the exam to get into medical school) is between 300-400 hours.

Who would like to be apart of a CCNA study?

We can meet 3-4 times a week.

Hello everyone, i recently passed security plus with 830 score, now im heading for the next step, i wanna take ccna to build a very strong networking foundation, and make my knowledge general not just focused on security, please share some tips, anything helps, where do i start studying and is there notes, and any famous person that teaches , in security plus i had json dion and these guys were good, idk now abt ccna, any tip is helpful.

Hey guys,

Currently a telecoms engineer in the UK working with fibre, FTTP/FTTC, ONTs, exchanges, patching and broadband fault finding.

I’m studying for my CCNA and doing labs alongside it. My goal is to move into a NOC/network support or junior network engineer role.

Just wondering if anyone here came from a similar telecoms/ISP/field background.

Did CCNA + labs + your existing telecom experience get you into networking, or did you still have to go through help desk/1st line IT first?

I’ve also considered doing A+, but I’m wondering if that’s really necessary when I’m already working in telecoms and aiming specifically for networking.

I know the market might be a bit different as I’m in the UK, but would be great to hear experiences from anywhere.

Cheers!

I used to get totally confused by default gateways. I thought they were some advanced networking secret. Then I realized a default gateway is just like the front door of your apartment building. If you want to talk to someone in your own building, you just knock on their door. But if you want to send a letter outside your building, you have to hand it to the front desk receptionist first. Your computer does the exact same thing. If the destination IP address is outside your local network, it hands the traffic over to the default gateway router to send it out to the wider internet. Once I pictured it like a lobby desk, routing local versus remote traffic finally clicked.

I found this out after someone responded to my comment in Day 28's Lab.

Let's make it a quiz so it's more fun. Here's the scenario:

You have 3 routers (R2, R4, and R5) connected to the same Layer 2 switch, so they are all on the same OSPF broadcast network.

Their IP addresses are:

• R2: 10.2.2.2/8
• R4: 10.4.4.4/8
• R5: 10.5.5.5/8

R2 and R4 are configured with normal OSPF settings. However, R5 is initially configured with a 5-second hello interval and this prevents it from forming an OSPF adjacency with R2/R4

So initially, the DR/BDR election happens between R2 and R4:

• R4 → DR
• R2 → BDR

Now here's the interesting part:

I remove the custom hello interval from R5, restoring it to the default 10 seconds.

R5 can now form OSPF adjacencies with the other routers.

At this point, R5 has the highest Router ID.

What do you think happens?

A. R4 remains DR because OSPF elections are non-preemptive, and R5 becomes DROther.

B. R5 becomes DR immediately because it has the highest Router ID.

C. R4 remains DR, but R5 becomes the new BDR.

D. A completely new DR/BDR election occurs, replacing both R4 and R2.

Be honest and comment your what you think is the right response is before you see the answer and its explanation.

I'll post the answer/explanation below. 👇

I just passed today. I had 6 labs. Guys the exam was really tough but i managed.

*** Please practice labs guys!!! I had all manner of lab simulations and was just sweating and gasping for air😄😁🤣!

Because of my work schedule, I don't have access to a computer throughout the week, so my only option is to watch Jeremy's YouTube playlist and do the flash cards during my lunch breaks, and then do the labs on the weekends when I'm home.

Is this an acceptable way to study for the test? Or do I really need to do the labs together with the videos in order to get a solid undestanding?

Thanks!

As a special back-to-study promotion, we're offering 50% discounts on all our CCNA preparation assets for the duration of September.

Here's a brief summary of each of our premium CCNA assets:

Practice Exam Pack 1 and Practice Exam Pack 2 offer a comprehensive test-like experience.
The tests are multiple-choice only and omit labs, as they're optimized for practicing your knowledge on the widest range of devices possible.

Our Quick Test Pack is a great way to measure your knowledge level across all topics, easily identifying your weak areas without having to take a full-length test. They're great for practicing while you're on the go, or waiting for your laundry!

Once you've found a topic that needs working on, the Topic Review Quiz Collection will help you get up to speed and make sure your CCNA knowledge is complete.

For full information about each CCNA preparation asset, you can check their pages on the My Test Trainer website. I'll also keep an eye on this thread to answer any questions!

Hello , I’m currently scoring 90%+ consistently on Boson ExSim and I have around 2–3 years of networking experience.
Do you think I’m ready to take the CCNA, or would you recommend studying/testing myself with other materials first?
For those who recently passed the CCNA, how similar did you find the actual exam compared to Boson?

I’m currently studying for the CCNA and trying to keep the cost as low as possible. I learn best through a mix of videos, practice questions, and hands-on labs rather than just reading a textbook.

For those who recently passed the CCNA, what resources did you use and how much did you spend?

I’m mainly looking for:

• A good video course
• Packet Tracer/lab exercises
• Practice exams that are close to the real exam difficulty
• Free or inexpensive study materials

I’m willing to spend some money if something is genuinely worth it, but I’d rather avoid paying for expensive subscriptions I don’t need.

Also, how long did you study before you felt ready to take the exam?

So i just finished doing some boson studies, got 80+ on practice test. But the labs are weird to me, so it counts it as wrong because i did my configs different but in packet tracer my configs work. And i dont think it read as do this exact same configs, it was more like create this, do this.

What i mean is for example they did network statements for ospf while i put ospf under the interfaces after i created it globally. Or they tell me to do ssh and i add a username secret, login local, but they did it as a login with no username but i thought you need username to have ssh to work? Or another example i needed to do port channels but apparently i didnt call it was lacp, even though i did active standby and calling it is optional from what i googled.

Is ccna going to be like this? Where if i add a config different from their pre upload running config, im pretty much out of luck? I am scared of missing a lab because i did ip access-list instead of access-list or some shit like that and they just assume my whole lab is wrong. Do i have to just kind of memorize how boson does it, and replicate that in the test?

Any tips? How do you guys know when you overthinking it and over configuring the labs i guess. I hope ccna is more straight forward with what they actually want configured.

I used to freeze up every time I saw a subnet mask question in my study materials. The long strings of numbers and weird math formulas felt like a trap designed to make me fail. I tried memorizing charts and borrowing random shortcut tricks from videos, but the second the numbers changed slightly, my brain completely blanked out. I felt like I was trying to solve algebra puzzles in the dark.

The breakthrough happened when I stopped looking at subnetting as a math test and started seeing it like dividing a giant pizza. Imagine you have a single large pizza that represents your entire network. A subnet mask is just the knife you use to slice that pizza into smaller boxes so you can hand them out to different tables.

When you change the mask, you are basically deciding how many slices you need and how big each slice should be. If you want more tables served, you have to make the slices smaller. If you want fewer tables with bigger portions, you make fewer cuts.

Once I started drawing out these little pizza boxes on scrap paper instead of staring at raw numbers on a screen, the binary math stopped feeling like magic. You do not need to be a math genius to get it. You just need to remember that you are always sharing a single pool of space and cutting it up to fit your needs. If you are stuck on this part right now, put down the calculator and grab a pen to sketch out the divisions. It changes everything.

I passed the CCNA back in July. I labbed a lot of stuff out in Packet Tracer but how do I get hands on with SD WAN and the automation tools?

Curious about something from people who already passed CCNA. Once you started working with real networks, which CCNA concepts did you end up using the most?

I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to do anymore, so I'm posting here to see if anyone has gone through the same thing.

I've completed all three CCNA courses through Cisco Networking Academy, and my instructor has marked all of them as completed. I have also satisfied the required conditions, including scoring above 70% in all the required modules.

After finishing everything, I checked my certification discount and the 58% CCNA course-granted discount is actually showing in my NetAcad account.

The problem is, it says INELIGIBLE.

It literally shows CCNA, 58%, Course Granted, but then says I'm ineligible. Both the Request by and Use by fields are blank too.

So obviously, I first went to my instructor and asked what was going on. I was told that this seemed like something Cisco needed to handle, so I contacted Cisco Certifications Support.

And this is where the whole thing became a complete mess.

My case got escalated to Tier 2, and then they told me they had forwarded the issue to Cisco Networking Academy Support. After waiting, I finally got a response from NetAcad Support.

They basically said they reviewed my account and confirmed that my discount is currently ineligible.

Okay... but WHY?

That's literally the only thing I've been asking from the beginning.

Instead of telling me why I'm ineligible, they told me to contact my instructor. And if my instructor needed help understanding why it was ineligible, he should contact their Support Desk.

So let me get this straight: I go to my instructor, he tells me to contact Cisco. I contact Cisco, Cisco sends me to NetAcad Support. NetAcad Support checks my account and then tells me to go back to my instructor.

Like what the actual fuck am I supposed to do? 😭

I'm not asking them to just give me a discount for free. If I don't meet some requirement, fine. Just tell me what the requirement is. But as far as I know, I have completed all three courses, my instructor has marked them as completed, and I have satisfied the required performance conditions, including scoring above 70% in all the required modules.

Did I miss some other eligibility requirement? Is there a problem with one of my course records? Is my account messed up? Is something not synced properly?

Just tell me what's wrong so it can be fixed.

Instead, I've been going back and forth between my instructor and multiple Cisco support teams, and after all of this I STILL don't know why my account says INELIGIBLE.

My instructor is now tired of the back and forth as well and has opened another case directly through NetAcad Support because that's what they told him to do.

What's making me even more curious is that I posted about this on Cisco Community, and other people have started saying they're having the exact same issue. They've completed their CCNA courses, but their course-granted discount is also showing as INELIGIBLE.

So now I'm wondering if this is actually some bigger issue with the NetAcad discount system.

Has anyone here experienced this recently? Especially the exact situation where the 58% CCNA course-granted discount shows up in your account but says INELIGIBLE?

And most importantly, did anyone actually manage to get it fixed?

Because honestly, I'm exhausted with this whole thing. I've spent a long time preparing for the CCNA, completed all the courses, satisfied the requirements, and now I'm stuck at the discount stage with nobody even able to tell me what's wrong.

I saw a post from someone in the UK looking for someone to study with. Is it possible to create a discord surrounding coordinating study groups? I’d love to join a group that goes through videos/lectures or talks through/builds labs. The IT community is complicated and broad. Likewise, working on something complex can be somewhat isolating for some people (like me in rural Alabama) wherein the pool of available associates and colleagues can be limited. Id love to get a weekly call together to help skill build and get a more social atmosphere towards learning that isn’t LinkedIn, but a bunch of people who genuinely want to learn and grow in their field.

Edit: I just decided to make one. The IT Guild

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/s/question/0D5QO00002esVjk0AE/why-is-my-ccna-voucher-ineligible-after-doing-everything?t=1788245705530

For all those based in South Africa please advise how to find work with just a CCNA with no experience.

Subnetting was one of those topics that looked confusing at first but became much easier after enough practice.

For anyone who has passed CCNA, what method or resource helped subnetting finally click for you?

hello everyone,

i just wanna an idea on how to learn and i have 2 questions i really appreciate answering them ,my way of learning now is just the jitlab ccna YouTube course and the other jitlab r&s labs on youtube ,

1- is my way enough to pass the ccna exam?
2- is there a clear and effective roadmap on how to learn ccna?

i am open to any recommendations
thnx

I got my CCNA about a month or two ago and I was able to land a NOC Tier 1 position interview. Very nervous as I have not been able to keep up with my CCNA and feel like I’ve lost some edge. Any advice able to be given would be very helpful, whether it’s what to practice/study or what to expect! Thank you!