ICND2 640-816 is Dead; What to Do Now?

 In 200-301 V1 CCC No Category on Purpose, News

As of today, October 1st, 2013, the old CCNA exams are no more. Is that a big deal to you? If you’ve not passed any of the exams, probably not. If you already have your CCNA, again, no biggie. But if you passed the old ICND1 640-822 exam, and now want to complete your CCNA Routing and Switching cert, you have a small problem. Today’s post works through options.

Ground Rules: Yes, You Can Just Pass the New 200-101 Exam

First, yes you can pass the old ICND1 and new ICND2 exams to get your CCNA. The problem comes in the fact that Cisco added topics, removed topics, and moved a lot of topics between ICND1 and ICND2. So, you have a lot of work to do to figure out what to study (keep reading)…

If really want more detail about the options for which exams to take, check out this post from back around the announcement.

Passing the New ICND2 200-101 with No New Materials

Let’s say you already own a copy of my ICND1 640-822 and ICND2 640-816 Cert Guide (the books for the no-longer-available exams). And you just really don’t want to spend any more money. What can you do?

Well, I wrote another post just after announcement, just for you: how to study for the new exams with the old books. Is it optimal? No. You will have to dig up materials for the new topics on the new exams to fill in the holes.

So, take a look at that earlier post. Then look at the bottom of the post, for the link to the PDF specific to your old book plus the ICND2 200-101 exam.

Passing the New ICND2 200-101 with the New CCNA 200-120 Library

If you have around $50 to spend, you have a pretty reasonable path to get the info you need to study for the new ICND2 200-101 exam: buy the latest edition of the CCNA 200-120 Certification Library. This library, like all “Library” products from Cisco Press, is a box with multiple products in it. The products in this case are the new ICND1 100-101 Official Cert Guide and the ICND2 200-101 Official Cert Guide.

Why is it useful to get the Library with both the ICND1 and ICND2 books in it, and not just buy the ICND2 book? Cisco added many new topics to the new exams, some to ICND1, some to ICND2. Getting the new Library gets you the new material on all the new topics in both exams:

  • All the new ICND2 topics (in the ICND2 book)
  • All the new ICND1 topics (in the ICND1 book), which you need to know before taking the ICND2 exam

Here’s a summary of the new topics, for both ICND1 and ICND2:

Figure 1: New Topics in ICND1 100-101

Figure 2: New topics in ICND2 200-101

Passing the New ICND2 200-101 with New ICND2 200-101 Cert Guide

If you don’t want to spend the $50 or so on the library, but would go for about $30, get the new ICND2 200-101 Cert Guide alone. Then you just have to find a way to read the new ICND1 100-101 topics. A suggestion: all the Cisco Press books come with a code to allow for a short subscription to Safari Online Books. Study for ICND2 200-101, and pick a timeframe to use your free Safari subscription. Then activate the subscription, and start reading those few new topics. It might save you a few bucks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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