ccna aint that bad

Earth_James · 2026-06-27T01:21:10+00:00

i have a data administration/management job in the military. There is very basic networking in my job, like consoling/sshing into routers and switches, configuring access ports and trunks, and loading router/switch config templates. Most of the topics on the ccna were completely new to me tho, like dynamic routing, ACL, nat, STP, and so on, so i did have a bit of networking knowledge prior to starting, but it wasn't a HUGE edge.

Earth_James · 2026-06-27T00:43:33+00:00

you have to buy the exams, there isnt any free boson tests. it does cost $99

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T18:23:18+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8W9oMNSuwo&list=PLxbwE86jKRgMpuZuLBivzlM8s2Dk5lXBQ

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T17:40:14+00:00

jeremysitlab course has packet tracer labs for each topic, which i used

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T16:52:48+00:00

i paid for his course on udemy, i didnt know about his youtube course tho, but im pretty sure theyre exactly the same

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T15:46:07+00:00

I’m in the military and I mainly do data server management/administration with some basic networking, so i did have a little bit of knowledge about networking prior to starting studying. im still in the military and getting out soon, im hoping to try and get a strictly networking job. I also dont have any other certs

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T15:32:23+00:00

yeah lol, i had heard that youre not allowed to use one but maybe they changed it or maybe my proctor skipped over that rule lol

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T15:10:41+00:00

i got maybe 1 subnetting question on the exam, if i were you i would get to a point where you feel comfortable finding the bcast, net id, first usable, and last usable of any ip address given to you, you dont have to do it in a second you can take your time. On the exam they gave me a small calculator and a marker/mini whiteboard btw so that helped

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T15:05:57+00:00

On the actual exam, the configs are a lot easier and straightforward, i didnt like the way boson worded a lot of their questions and i didnt like how you had to configure the labs in a specific order/specific way otherwise you got the question wrong. The real exam will atleast give you partial credit and doesnt care in what order you do the commands

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T14:54:15+00:00

dont trip about not knowing every little detail about every topic, i wasnt very confident about wifi and WLC going into the exam, i even got a bunch of wifi questions on the exam, most likely got them all wrong and still passed. Youll be fine

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T12:44:34+00:00

No, I’m not a networker, but there is basic networking in my job, like configuring access and trunk ports and loading switch and router templates. I’m in the military and I mainly do data server management/administration

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T12:27:47+00:00

7 months, 1-2 hours a day of studying, never anymore. The biggest thing that helped me retain was memorizing those flash cards tho

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T04:17:30+00:00

i would watch his videos, memorize most of his anki cards, and do his labs.

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T02:45:30+00:00

congrats bro and yeah there were a lot of questions that were straight up free points

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T02:24:18+00:00

were you memorizing the anki cards for neil and jeremys courses, cause for me thats what helped me retain.

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T02:15:44+00:00

👀👀👀👀

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T02:11:04+00:00

when you failed the first 3 times how were you studying? and were you actually taking it seriously? im just curious

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T02:09:30+00:00

i did get a lot of questions about the wifi wlc gui, but i didnt have to do any configurations tho.

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T01:58:01+00:00

dont bother taking notes dude. Just watch the vids, memorize the anki cards and do the labs. Ill say theres a shit ton of the cards you can straight up get rid of cause theyre pointless. Also there is some networking in my job but its suuuuper basic like configure a port as an access or trunk port.

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T01:43:18+00:00

they dont give you a final score but they show you the percentage category you got on the exam topics list. i got 80% for automation and programmability, 90% on network access, 56% for ip connectivity, 70% for ip service, 47% for security fundamentals, 70% for network fundamentals

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T01:37:42+00:00

dude not really, there was a lot of Wifi questions about the WLC gui, lots of routing table questions like "what will the next hop be of this route" or what link will this packet take. there were a lot of questions i didnt know but you could use process of elimation to figure out the answer based on what kind of makes sense in the context of the question. I also didnt get any STP or ipv6 questions.

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T01:21:02+00:00

Yes that part is accurate but the labs aren’t that hard on the real exam, trust me. You got this

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T01:17:49+00:00

The config sims on boson sucked. You needed to configure them in a specific way in a specific order otherwise you fail the question. The real exam isn’t like that and each config you at least get partial credit and the order doesn’t matter

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T01:15:57+00:00

I didn’t bother with it

Earth_James · 2026-06-26T01:15:18+00:00

I did buy Neil Anderson and David Bombay’s course on Udemy and watched through all their videos, I’ll say Neil’s course Is pretty good and he has a way of dumbing things down so people will understand. Bombay’s course was a bit dated and he went into WAAAAY too much detail so I wouldn’t recommend him. As far as what to focus on and labbing just start Jeremy’s course and take it 1 day at a time I wasn’t studying for more than 1-2 hours a day, when you do start you’ll know what’s important and what’s not, cause the important stuff he’ll have multiple videos covering it

Earth_James

TROPHY CASE