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CCNA ICND2 640-816 Official Cert Guide
New Edition of Best Selling Official Cert Updated Content, New Exercises, and Expanded Coverage -- PLUS includes CCNA Network Simulator Lite Edition This is the eBook version of the print title. Note that the eBook does not provide access to the practice test software that accompanies the print book. Access to the Network Simulator Lite and personal video mentoring is available through product registration at Cisco Press - or see instructions in back pages of your eBook. The new edition of bestselling CCNA ICND2 640-816 Official Cert Guide, Third Edition by Wendell Odom has been updated to refresh the content, add new exercises, and enhance certain topics that are key to understanding for success on the CCNA exams. Chapters on VLSM, route summarization, and IP access control lists have been completely revised. In addition the book contains new practice exercises for all three of these topics to help reinforce the concepts and increase computation speed for exam preparation. Learn, prepare, and practice for exam success CCNA ICND2 640-816 Official Cert Guide, Third Edition is a best of breed Cisco exam study guide. Best-selling author and expert instructor Wendell Odom shares preparation hints and test-taking tips, helping you identify areas of weakness and improve both your conceptual knowledge and hands-on skills. The book presents you with an organized test preparation routine through the use of proven series elements and techniques. The master table of exam topics makes referencing easy. “Do I Know This Already?” quizzes open each chapter and enable you to decide how much time you need to spend on each section. Chapter-ending Exam Preparation Tasks help you drill on key concepts you must know thoroughly. A final preparation chapter guides you through tools and resources to help you craft your final study plan. Special troubleshooting sections help you master the complex scenarios you will face on the exam.
- GenresTechnology
736 pages, Hardcover
First published October 21, 2011
4 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 24, 2013
This is what a book would be like if it were written by a computer.
I've read quite a few self-study certification books in my time, but this book, along with CCENT/CCNA ICND1 640-822 Official Cert Guide With DVD ROM (also by Wendell Odom) has to be the driest, most unapologetically boring knowledge-vomit I've ever put myself through.
I don't mean that it isn't comprehensive, because it is most certainly that. And I don't mean that Odom doesn't clearly know his stuff, because he absolutely does. But what I do mean is that there are ways to write these technical books without driving your audience insane with boredom. I consider myself pretty lenient when it comes to writing, and I'm even more willing to cut an author some slack when he's writing a textbook meant to teach me some complicated topic, but there comes a point when you've got to throw your hands up and say enough is enough and you should just stick to being a Cisco Badass and leave the writing to someone else because clearly you don't have what it takes to teach effectively. Wendell Odom has brought me to that point.
I slogged my way through his first book (ICND1) and managed to pass with about fifty points to spare. I'll chalk that up to the fact that much of the material was already well within my wheelhouse, so a lot of what I was learning was review. The topics covered in ICND2 however are definitely new to me, so I was doing my best to use this tome to learn and pass, but when it came time to do my studying, forcing myself to read and learn from this book was like forcing myself to memorize the phone book... it was that tedious. I made it through Chapter 9 of 19 before I threw in the towel.
Here are my chief concerns with Mr. Odom's book: There is no attempt to bring high-level concepts down to a learner's viewpoint. New concepts and terminology are thrown at you at such an obtuse angle that sometimes the new terminology used in a paragraph won't be fully explained until the end of a page. Rambling, exhaustive examples are given throughout each chapter with excruciating detail paid to each step... which is nice, but sadly a lot of the time core concepts aren't fully explained until you're knee-deep in "Example 5-8 Step 4c" (for example). Thorough examples are great, but this is not a substitute for teaching.
Also, there is a difference between showing me what I need to know to pass the exam and teaching me everything you know about a given topic. Odom does not recognize this distinction. This is supposed to be a certification guide, not a reference manual. There is a TON of material covered here, but it's hard to tell what I should be focusing on. If I were to follow Odom's study plan I'd be spending forty hours per week for six months learning all of this stuff.
And finally, it's plain to see that Odom just has no empathy for someone trying to learn all of this from scratch. I understand that he's a CCIE and that that is a very difficult exam to pass, but if you're writing for the lowest-level entry exams, you have to assume that some things will need to be reiterated for them to actually be fully understood and retained long enough to pass a high-stakes exam. Instead, Odom fills his pages with references to previous chapters (not sections... CHAPTERS) where the reader can go and brush up on something he's assuming you understand as well as he does.
I love IT. I love networking. I want to pass the ICND2 and earn my CCNA, but there has got to be a better way than subjecting myself to the torture of this book. Luckily, I have found Todd Lammle's CCNA Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide, 7th Edition. I ordered it on Amazon yesterday. I'll be using Odom's ICND2 book for the lab sims, the practice exams, and reference but that's it.
Reviewers say Lammle writes like he's trying to teach an actual human, so I'm hoping for the best.
I've read quite a few self-study certification books in my time, but this book, along with CCENT/CCNA ICND1 640-822 Official Cert Guide With DVD ROM (also by Wendell Odom) has to be the driest, most unapologetically boring knowledge-vomit I've ever put myself through.
I don't mean that it isn't comprehensive, because it is most certainly that. And I don't mean that Odom doesn't clearly know his stuff, because he absolutely does. But what I do mean is that there are ways to write these technical books without driving your audience insane with boredom. I consider myself pretty lenient when it comes to writing, and I'm even more willing to cut an author some slack when he's writing a textbook meant to teach me some complicated topic, but there comes a point when you've got to throw your hands up and say enough is enough and you should just stick to being a Cisco Badass and leave the writing to someone else because clearly you don't have what it takes to teach effectively. Wendell Odom has brought me to that point.
I slogged my way through his first book (ICND1) and managed to pass with about fifty points to spare. I'll chalk that up to the fact that much of the material was already well within my wheelhouse, so a lot of what I was learning was review. The topics covered in ICND2 however are definitely new to me, so I was doing my best to use this tome to learn and pass, but when it came time to do my studying, forcing myself to read and learn from this book was like forcing myself to memorize the phone book... it was that tedious. I made it through Chapter 9 of 19 before I threw in the towel.
Here are my chief concerns with Mr. Odom's book: There is no attempt to bring high-level concepts down to a learner's viewpoint. New concepts and terminology are thrown at you at such an obtuse angle that sometimes the new terminology used in a paragraph won't be fully explained until the end of a page. Rambling, exhaustive examples are given throughout each chapter with excruciating detail paid to each step... which is nice, but sadly a lot of the time core concepts aren't fully explained until you're knee-deep in "Example 5-8 Step 4c" (for example). Thorough examples are great, but this is not a substitute for teaching.
Also, there is a difference between showing me what I need to know to pass the exam and teaching me everything you know about a given topic. Odom does not recognize this distinction. This is supposed to be a certification guide, not a reference manual. There is a TON of material covered here, but it's hard to tell what I should be focusing on. If I were to follow Odom's study plan I'd be spending forty hours per week for six months learning all of this stuff.
And finally, it's plain to see that Odom just has no empathy for someone trying to learn all of this from scratch. I understand that he's a CCIE and that that is a very difficult exam to pass, but if you're writing for the lowest-level entry exams, you have to assume that some things will need to be reiterated for them to actually be fully understood and retained long enough to pass a high-stakes exam. Instead, Odom fills his pages with references to previous chapters (not sections... CHAPTERS) where the reader can go and brush up on something he's assuming you understand as well as he does.
I love IT. I love networking. I want to pass the ICND2 and earn my CCNA, but there has got to be a better way than subjecting myself to the torture of this book. Luckily, I have found Todd Lammle's CCNA Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide, 7th Edition. I ordered it on Amazon yesterday. I'll be using Odom's ICND2 book for the lab sims, the practice exams, and reference but that's it.
Reviewers say Lammle writes like he's trying to teach an actual human, so I'm hoping for the best.
December 10, 2013
Very informative and the author obviously knows his stuff. Tons of diagrams and code samples. Very repetitive - I feel like about 10% of the book could have been omitted because the information had already been explained at least once. While I do agree that repetition reinforces learning, most of the repetition seemed to occur in the same chapters (ie here's what we're going to talk about, talk about topic, you might recall we talked about this, review of what we talked about).
October 2, 2013
Together with the ICND1 Official Cert Guide, it helped me pass my exam. There were a number of networking concepts that were explained more clearly in this book than in the official Network Academy curriculum or in the classroom, such as IPV6 addressing (especially stateless autoconfiguration and link local addresses) and the intricacies of Spanning Tree Protocol.
July 19, 2012
Great book! A must for CCNA cert.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews