In the review material provided with the book, there are a couple of interesting chapters that address different types of exams. The first chapter addresses the typical objectives found on most testing sites. In particular, you should pay close attention to the sections on VSI/VI, VOP, and MCSE. Knowing these things will help you prepare for other parts of the Comptia A+ and certification reviews.
While the majority of the book focuses on the typical objectives, the second chapter gives a more detailed explanation of each of them. For example, it lists VSI/VI, VOP, and MCSE objectives in greater detail. As a result, when you review the next section, you will be able to understand the differences better and prepare yourself accordingly. The concepts presented in the second chapter are simple enough to understand but are oftentimes oversimplified in typical IT training books.
The third chapter of the book is a comprehensive walk through of sample questions from all three areas that you will be tested on. This way, even if you are familiar with the subject matter, you will still have something to guide you in your studies. The book has a very thorough checklist of resources you can use for further study. It also provides a complete list of study guides for CPA exams.
The fourth chapter covers the technical aspects of the exams. The topics covered include operating systems, virtualization, networking, server management, and software testing. Again, the book does an excellent job of synthesizing this information into clear language. As with the other objectives, the study guide provided by the Cisco Institute has a lot of sample questions and answers you can follow. There is also a detailed summary of the format of each section, which is extremely helpful.
The fifth chapter looks at the types of exams that people take and the benefits of taking them. The book then walks through the types of exams in more detail, including VSI/VI. Some of the topics covered are virtual testing, lab testing, field testing, and RPOE. Again, there is a lot of sample test questions included in the study guide.
The sixth chapter looks at a few common VSI problems that you will encounter on the exam. It then goes into VSI testing strategy. The sample tests provided with the book make it easy to learn from. The study guide also includes the format of VSI questions.
Overall, the Cisco Institute’s CCNA Study Guide Achieves Your CompTIA Certification objectives are well organized. It gives you all the information needed to study for the CCNA Exam. The study guide costs about forty-five dollars and is available from the Cisco website.
My experience with the Cisco CompTIA A+, my brother’s with Cisco CCNA, and my own experience with the CCNA exams have all been positive. However, I did notice that the actual learning process was a little slower than what I would have liked. I think that the biggest downfall of the book, which really comes down to personal preference, is that it did not provide visual cues as to where to go or how to get there. The book is easy to read, but it is a little hard to figure out what to do next. However, this minor gripe could be overcome by finding someone who has worked through all the objectives for the specific certification before.
Overall, I enjoyed the layout of the Cisco Institute’s CCNA Study Guide Achieving Your CompTIA Certification objectives. I liked that the layout was easy to follow and explained things in an easy to understand manner. The study guide also provided practice questions and answers for each question, which made it much easier to memorize the answers and get ready for the real thing.
Overall, I thought the Cisco Institute’s CCNA Study Guide Achieving Your CompTIA Certification objectives were reasonable in terms of price and value for the money spent. The book had enough information to get by, but left out some of the most important concepts. For example, they left out some of the key terminology and explanation, which could have been extremely important to me when preparing for my exams. Also, I think they could have explained more thoroughly what the meaning of the networking fundamentals is and why they are important. Overall, I think this is a good book for beginners, but not so good for people who already know everything about networking.
