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Rating: 
Summary: Does NOT Cover The Test
Review: After studying this book and taking the test, I found this book to not be of much use! There are so many questions that are asked on the exam that are not covered, or barely touched on in the book that I would not recommend this book for preparation for the exam! I have taken many CISCO tests and have scored over 900 on most of them, to study a Cisco Press book and not have it cover the material is VERY Disappointing!
Rating: 
Summary: ok but not sufficient to pass the exam
Review: After taking the BCRAN exam, I've noticed that there were quite a bit of questions that were not mentioned or discussed in this book. You can't rely on this book alone and assume that you're ready to pass the exam, or be prepared to see your $125 to go down the drain. I have to agree with other reviewers for the lack of edit fix. There're mistakes, some are rather obvious, some others not so obvious. It's quite disappointing that Ciscopress book can't cover the whole exam content. If Ciscopress book can't do the satisfactory job, where else do we turn to? I only hope that other books do a better job.
Rating:
Summary: The book was fair - not bad, not great.
Review: As I've been taking the CCNP exams, I've been writing reviews of the books I studied with.
One common item to every Cisco Press book I've read entirely is the proofreading, or lack of. This book is no exception. As others have mentioned, there are obvious errors in the text that someone should have easily caught, and not so obvious ones. There are a few questions on the CD that are wrong or flatly contradict the information in the book. Fortunately most of it is easy to spot.
As far as test preparation is concerned, the book does an adequate job. I scored reasonably well on the test and remote access is what I consider to be my weakest area. I used ONLY Cisco Press books for studying, primarily this one.
There were no questions on the test that blindsided me - other reviewers have stated otherwise. Since the questions come from a pool it's possible that I got the easy ones. One thing to keep in mind is that the Cisco Press books (for that matter, any prep book) have disclaimers about the material in the book vs. what is on the exam. They do not suggest that memorizing the book will guarantee you a passing grade! You really do need to have some real world experience to tie things together. Let your mind stretch a little and ask some of the stranger what-if's. The Cisco exams rarely ask simple point and shoot questions, they almost always are a blend of concepts.
For this particular book, if you understand the material and do good on the practice questions (I also recommend www.free-tests.com, they have 250 free exam questions you can take online) odds are good you'll pass the test. Of course, the same claim can be made of all the books I've used so far.
Good luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Nice but not good
Review: I am a CCNP as well as a Cisco Academy Instructor. I've taken 7 Cisco tests and this is definately not one of the better study guides. My gripes with this book are:(1) After properly studying this book you will PROBABLY pass the exam. It's just enough to get by. Previous Cisco and Sybex books have made the tests a breeze and given me great confidence during the tests. By comparison this book falls short. (2) A few items on the exam were not covered in the book. You may be blindsided by some of the questions. (3) The included quiz CD-ROM has several defective questions. ie. the answer that is right in the book is wrong on the CD-ROM, etc... Did no one at Cisco Press proofread each question at least once before finalizing the CD? (4) The quiz CD-ROM supposedly contains 225 unique questions. In taking the 50 question practice exam 10+ times, I encountered only about 100 unique questions. It seems the same questions get asked again and again, making your answers more reflex than knowledge. (5) The questions in the book and on the CD-ROM are simpler than those on the exam. They don't provide any indicator at all of if you are ready for the exam.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre, but you'll probably pass
Review: I am a CCNP as well as a Cisco Academy Instructor. I've taken 7 Cisco tests and this is definately not one of the better study guides. My gripes with this book are: (1) After properly studying this book you will PROBABLY pass the exam. It's just enough to get by. Previous Cisco and Sybex books have made the tests a breeze and given me great confidence during the tests. By comparison this book falls short. (2) A few items on the exam were not covered in the book. You may be blindsided by some of the questions. (3) The included quiz CD-ROM has several defective questions. ie. the answer that is right in the book is wrong on the CD-ROM, etc... Did no one at Cisco Press proofread each question at least once before finalizing the CD? (4) The quiz CD-ROM supposedly contains 225 unique questions. In taking the 50 question practice exam 10+ times, I encountered only about 100 unique questions. It seems the same questions get asked again and again, making your answers more reflex than knowledge. (5) The questions in the book and on the CD-ROM are simpler than those on the exam. They don't provide any indicator at all of if you are ready for the exam.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and Very Thorough
Review: I used this well-written book as my primary study source for the exam. . and I passed the first time I took it! Excellent book. . .very thorough and a great value.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Readable and a Good Value
Review: The "CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition" (ISBN 1-58720-084-8; Brian Morgan and Craig Dennis; Cisco Press; 547 pages) is the official study guide for the "Building Cisco Remote Access Networks" exam (BCRAN 642-821). The Forward to this guide states that it is "a complete study tool" for the exam. And it does appear to cover all of the topics described in the exam at www.cisco.com. The topics include traditional and emerging WAN technologies, dial-on-demand, NAT and security. The book is well structured, beginning with a high-level overview of remote access technologies and requirements and presents information in easily absorbed pieces. Very well executed figures, examples and even photographs are used liberally to help explain concepts and familiarize readers with the relevant Cisco products. The book provides several suggested study strategies and useful tips for taking the real exam. The "Do I Know This Already?" questions at the start of each chapter allow readers with different levels of experience to focus on the specific areas they need to improve. At the end of each chapter is a "Foundation Summary" that's intended to reinforce concepts and to be used as review notes prior to the real exam. But the "Foundation Summary" found in several chapters consists of only a few sentences and omits commands and other ostensibly important information found in the text. Also following each chapter is a "Q&A" section with questions that are more difficult than the ones on the real exam. These questions probe one's understanding of a topic and don't depend on the multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank formats that encourage guessing at answers. All questions and answers are grouped into an appendix that makes a good review tool to use the day before the exam. Although the back cover of the guide describes "an entire chapter of scenarios" or real world exercises, only a handful of scenarios can be found distributed among just a few chapters. The companion CD-ROM contains practice questions and the full text in Adobe Acrobat format. A total of 276 test questions are available including 170 questions taken directly from the text and 20 lab simulations. The practice tests use the venerable Boson test engine and contain multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank and list-in-order style questions. The well-designed and functional simulator provides practice in basic configuration of many of the IOS features described in the text. When errors are found in a practice exam at best they are a nuisance; at worst they can actually cost the reader valuable points on the real exam. Thankfully, the printed material and practice tests included here contain few obvious errors. However, no provision is made for easily reporting test errors if you do find them. There is no mention of how to go about reporting an incorrect answer. By contrast, some other products put a button on each answer that will send the questionable text along with comments directly to the author and publisher. Although registration via Internet or telephone is required before the practice tests can be used, nothing prevents one from registering and using the product on a second computer. This "feature" will be very appreciated by those that want to install the tests on a laptop for use when traveling in addition to installing on a desktop computer. The onerous single-use license enforced by some other publishers prevents this legitimate use of their product. Let's hope that Cisco Press continues to permit products like this to be registered and used on more than one computer. The authors have produced a technical reference and study guide that may very well be the only BCRAN exam preparation tool that you will need. And they've done a good job of presenting a lot of information in a thoroughly readable form with relatively few weaknesses. I look forward to seeing other titles from them. Overall the guide represents a good value. It can be purchased for roughly the same price as other BCRAN practice tests that don't include the high-quality hardcover text. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest rating, this guide rates a 4.
Rating:
Summary: Very good exam preparation book
Review: The book is well written and easy to read. This is the only book i used for the 642-821 exam. It is very similar to the first edition plus a few chapters on Broadband, VPN technologies.
The only thing i didnt like in the second edition is that it had too many chapters (very little ones) which could have been combined relevantly like it was in the first edition .
Also the test exams in the CD are very useful at the ...[fag] end of the exam to refresh all topics . Overall a very good book for the BCRAN exam .
Rating:
Summary: Nice but not good
Review: The book was nice to get started on but failed in covering all topics on the test. I counted that I know of 6 questions on the test that the book only mentions the name of the topic once with no description. Being that the book came from CiscoPress I was very displeased. I expect this from other study guides but not CP. By the way who ever did the editing is smoking something. I came across several questions in book questions that had incorrect answers. Also descriptions on certain topics said one thing and then told you another thing on the next page. I think the only reason I gave it 1 start is that it is someplace to get started and that is as low as they will let me set it. If Brain Morgan wrote some of these things then I would question his CCIE cert.
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