350-001 CCIE Routing

Unlimited Access

Practice Exams

CISSP

CCNP

MORE...

EXAMS: STUDY TIPS

350-001 CCIE Routing - Study Tips

Email this Article

Print this Article

• Relates to: CCIE

People commonly complete the CCNP exams before beginning to study for the CCIE Written. This is not a requirement, but rather the common path to follow, and it does help to prepare you for many of the topics covered. However, if you think the written is just an extension of the CCNP process, you’re wrong. The Written exam encompasses the totality of routing and switching with Cisco equipment. You’ll have two hours of being hammered with questions that can cover almost anything that can be done on Cisco networking equipment.

I’ve compiled a list of study suggestions that you might find useful:

Print out a copy of the exam blueprint from the Cisco website. Use this as the basis of your notes, and don’t consider yourself ready for the exam until you are completely comfortable with ALL the topics on the list. The blueprint changes occasionally, but the current version can be found at: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/625/ccie/certifications/rsblueprint.html
Develop a set of CCO (Cisco Connection Online) links associated with any of the technologies from the blueprint that are not familiar.
Join the e-mail conversation at www.groupstudy.com, where you’ll find a community of people who are all on the same certification track you are. Having a support group who knows what you’re talking about really helps. In addition, the archives are a brightly lit trail of those that have already traveled the road you’re on.
Buy a few books. This seems simple enough, but I’ve found there are two types of books lists for the CCIE - those for the lab and those for the written. They’re not the same. For our purposes here, there are two things we want to accomplish with our reading: to quickly get the written out of the way to start the long road to the lab; and to try as much as possible to conserve money and time by finding and reading materials that are applicable to both.
Excellent crossover books that I would recommend include:

Cisco Certification: Bridges, Routers and Switches for CCIEs, 2nd Edition by Andrew Bruce Caslow - The bible of CCIE preparation.
Internet Routing Architectures, 2nd Edition by Bassam Halabi - The authority on BGP.
CCIE Prof. Development Routing TCP/IP, Volumes I & II by Jeff Doyle - The authority on IGPs.
I would also recommend you pick up at least two of the common study guides specific to the CCIE Written. Compare and contrast them; where they agree, make sure you commit it to memory; where they disagree, use the CCO as your final authority. Every technical book ever written has errors (mine included), so don’t let an author’s confusion taint your preparations. Since there are a variety of products for this exam, and the list grows regularly, I would recommend going to Amazon.com and doing a search on “Cisco CCIE” and see what opinions people have posted. This may be silly, but I would take readability into account - this is pretty boring stuff, make sure the author doesn’t compound the problem with bad writing.
I can’t emphasize enough that while you’re reading, if there’s a topic that doesn’t seem to be sticking, or isn’t perfectly clear, check the Cisco website, the groupstudy.com archive, or ask questions of people you know or have met on the groupstudy e-mail feed.
Download sample exams. There are several available, including www.boson.com and www.certificationzone.com, but regardless of which vendor’s questions you choose, take advantage of a significant pool of questions, and select products by different authors. The subject matter for this exam is broad, and you want a good selection of material to study from.

There are many great books that specialize in presenting individual technology that represent significant topics for both the CCIE Written and Lab exams. Some examples of these would include: