A CCNA certification is one of the best ways to take your IT career forward. It opens up new avenues for you that lead to better pay packages and greater job roles in reputed companies. According to a recent survey, you can get up to 20% higher salary packages.
CCNA stands for Cisco Certified Network Associate. This certification verifies your credibility as an expert and improves your skills in configuring, managing and operating networks as well as troubleshooting and networking issues. It is meant for entry-level network engineers and equips you with basic to intermediate level skills.
Getting a CCNA certification is not easy, but you can take steps to ensure you are well prepared. Here are 5 easy tips to complete your CCNA training and pass the exam.
- Know What the Exam Demands
Before you start preparing for your CCNA exam, you must be fully aware of what you’re getting yourself into. The paper is divided into different parts which each focus on a specific skill and each has different weightage. The breakup of the 200-301 CCNA course is as follows:
- Security fundamentals – 15%
- IP Services – 10%
- Automation & Programmability – 10%
- Network Fundamentals – 20%
- IP Connectivity – 25%
- Network Access – 20%
This breakup shows the number of questions per domain that will come in the exam. There is also a chance that additional questions will be added at the last minute, but this breakup still increases your chances of passing the exam.
- Understand TCP/ IP Stack Addressing and Data Flow
Getting a CCNA certification is not easy, but you can definitely take steps to ensure you are well prepared. Here are 5 easy tips to complete your CCNA training and pass the exam. Layered models (OSI and TCP/ IP) are among the most fundamental topics you should grasp while learning networking. To pass your CCNA exam, you need to not only know these topics, but also the related TCP/ IP protocol stack.
Network Access Layer: There are a few things you need to know about media access control addresses:
- MAC address structure and representation: 48 bits represented as 12 hexadecimal digits
- MAC addressing on local networks: Understand how ARP works and how hosts keep an ARP cache/ table.
- Switches: A basic understanding of the MAC address table, also known as the Content Addressable Memory (CAM) table, and how a switch uses it to forward and filter traffic.
Internet Layer: All CCNA exams include IP address related questions. This includes:
- IPv4 addressing: Understand what reserved addresses are, and what the subnet mask does.
- IPv6: Know the different types of addresses (global, link local, unique local etc) and address modes (unicast, multicast, and anycast).
Transport Layer: Make sure you know the characteristics of TCP and UDP. Familiarise yourself with the common port numbers like Telnet (23) and HTTP (80).
- Find The Right Training Program Online
Using study material prepared by mistakes is good; getting trained by expert Cisco instructors is the best possible way to complete your CCNA training. A large number of online platforms offer to prepare you for your CCNA exam, but a rare few offer more than just study material. Koenig gives you
- free technical guidance for your career
- a free demo with Cisco experts as your instructors.
- You get to choose your time slots,
- get trained hands-on in a practical remote lab environment,
- and guaranteed exam passing assistance.
- Get The Study Material and Solve Practice Tests
CCNA is a very reputed cisco certification. This means that you will very easily find study material online. But this also makes it hard to choose the most authentic platforms that you can study from. When you enroll on Koenig, you get access to legitimate course material along with multiple mock exams to help you prepare better. Completing an entire mock test will not only improve your skills but also your concentration, focus and attention span. You also get to take dedicated preparatory leaves to better ready yourself for the upcoming exam.
- Be Mentally Prepared On Exam Day
Like any other exam you give, it is natural to feel anxious or stressed before you appear for the paper. But there are a few small things you can do to keep yourself prepared.
- Have everything you need before you set out to give the exam. You will definitely need some form of identification proof before starting the exam. Contact the exam centre for more details.
- Stay calm, hydrated, and well-rested. Clear your mind and don’t panic.
- Do a selective reading as a final review before the exam.
A CCNA certification opens you up to a lifelong learning experience. Instead of getting comfortable where you are, you make the effort to keep learning and also motivate your colleagues to do so. So take the step, enroll now and continue to upgrade your skills and career as long as you’re working.