I plan on sitting for the exam in a couple of weeks and was wondering if I could get some advice from y'all. I'm using the Exam Prep and have been using the Cisco Press book too, but mainly the Coriolis book. (I know everybody's hooked on sybex, but what can I say? ) I signed up today for techmindworks, because I keep hearing good things about it....Thanks quantity! Now, should I purchase some sort of routersim, seeing as how I don't have a router at home or will I be fine with my studies? If so, which one? How many of you have used them? Which one? How many have taken the exam without the use of a routersim and no hands on. I install routers and switches on a daily basis but never get a chance to get my hands dirty.

Sorry for rambling.

Thanks,
hostile

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Hostile,

As I typically phrase my answer to this question....Many disagree with me but I say save your money on the simulator, providing you are understanding what you are reading. Don't expect to understand everything, but it sounds like you have resources at work to ask questions and you can certainly post them here.

On the other hand if you are the hands on type of person and don't do well with the reading, then perhaps the simulator will help.

For me, I like reading and I often used multiple books or documentation from Cisco for one exam.

Yankee

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Thanks Yankee,
I AM soaking up all this stuff I'm reading, but wasn't sure what the general consensus was when it came down to the hands on type thing. I've been studying on average 8 hours a day and using r1r2.com also, so by the time test day comes I think I'll feel pretty confident. I wanted to get advice before I spent the money on the exam. I sure don't want to waste money right before Christmas, ya know?

Anybody else with opinions? I sure would appreciate it.

[This message has been edited by hostile (edited 11-26-2000).]

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I think the value of a simulator is to get comfortable with the products interface. Assume you've passed the CCNA and landed a job, what if they plop you down in front of a console and ask you to do the simple task such as creating a static route to whatever. Could you demonstrate that you've done this before? Since you done this a few times via a simulator, if you get errors, you will know "Oh yeah, I'm at the wrong prompt" because you've been through this. I think this week I'll try the r1r2.com site because my simulator doesn't cover ISDN, DDR, or setting up VLANs.

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Sometimes the simulators behave incorrectly. When I used Virtual Lab e-trainer, I would sometimes get puzzled by the way it behaved, then I would go to www.r1r2.com to verify what I thought was an error on the sim. I still think the sim was good, but perhaps a bit pricey. I think the optimal scenario is to have both the sim and use r1r2.com, if you can't access a router.

Cheers,

Deets

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