I hope everyone reading this knows what Cisco is, but if not I will give a brief description. Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet; they make routers, switches, hubs and so on, which is just the tip of the iceberg. As a part of their company they have such things called Career Certifications. Basically this means they give you a piece of paper with your name on it saying you summed up everything you have learned in a relatively small exam. I undertook such an exam recently called the Cisco Certified Network Associate 2.0 exam, ccna for short. In this article I’ll give you the lowdown on the type of things it covers and the difficulty involved in gaining such a certificate. First off I’d just like to say, this certificate is not too hard to achieve as long as you’ve got 2 things. First, you must have your Official Non-Idiot Card. Second, you have to have the willingness to learn, which means giving up that hot date (or for some of you, not-so-hot) for a little study time with a big fat…. BOOK. The book you get should cover a wide array of subject matter which includes, but not limited to, Router Configuration, IP addresses and Subnetting, Switch Configuration, Network Design, Network Management, Protocols, cabling and much, much more. Become familiar with all of that, make it your friend even because you will definitely need it to pass the test. With that taken care of, assuming you read the book (twice if necessary) and really believe you understand the material, you then go to www.2test.com. Here you will register to take the CCNA 640-507 exam at a location nearest you. Register for the date and time that makes you feel most comfortable and BAM, you got yourself an exam date. Up until that point you should continue to study and review the material because in my opinion they like to trick you when it comes to asking questions. Review as much, as often, and as long as you can before your exam date, the reason is, the exam is 100 U.S. bux to take and if you fail, you’re screwed out of your money. The scores range from 3oo-1ooo points, passing is 84o something. I got an 894, which isn’t bad, but shouldn’t be hard to top. Anyways, if you do decide to tackle this first of many exam, good luck and study hard! -Rocko
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