Rating: 
Summary: Test Engine [Stinks]
Review: I bought the book for reference during the coming years and to get the practice test engine to pass my CCNA. The book is OK but the practice test are a joke. There was no grammer check. A couple of questions made absolutly no sence. Questions are marked wrong during grading, but when you review then, the yellow line say they were right. Some questions would not let me answer them, others had circles where there should have been boxes and vis versa. When I emailed Cisco there answer was to down load the test engine for 507...big help Cisco. If I wanted the 507 test I would have bought a 507 book. Bottom line is that you can't trust Cisco to proof read and test thier own product. Get help from somebody else that has better quality control.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, not so good test engine in first release edition
Review: I bought this book to use as a primary study reference for passing the new #640-607 test. I do not own any other Cisco Press study materials but feel that the quality control that went in to this initial release is not up to par with what I would expect from this publisher. The book has a lot of good technical information but a number of typographical and grammatical errors. I was perfectly content overlooking those until I started to use the practice exams included on the companion CD. The test engine has problems. Aside from the typos, a significant portion of the practice questions are impossible to answer correctly for scoring, or even to grade to see what the correct answer should be. By way of example, there are several questions that are multiple choice but have radio buttons on the answers so that you can only select one. There are fill in the blank answers that expect verbatim answers such as 'store-and-forward' (with the hyphens), answers that simply don't display any highlighted answer at all when graded and simply score as incorrect. 5/29/2002 - Cisco Press did promptly send me a replacement CD that contains corrections to the tests, test grading, etc. I have spent some time going through 4 or 5 of the sections and can say it is a very marked improvement over the release version.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best CCNA books out there
Review: I found the book to be very helpful. It covers more material than you're required to know to pass the exam. I found it a little frustrating to get used to the author's style at first. He talks about terms and acronyms that are chapters ahead and doesn't bother to explain their meaning. After one pass of the whole book, I got comfortable with the style. I personally took a chance and skipped technologies that are almost obsolete such as Novell IPX and Appletalk. This is the only book I used to study for the CCNA and passed with a 949. Read it cover-to-cover, do the practice CD and the exam should be a breeze.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, horrible CD
Review: I found the book to be very informative. Odom's style of writing gives the material a flow and interest that is pleasantly surprising. If you don't feel particularly comfortable with IP addressing and subnetting, chapter 6 will definitely change that.
The CD is another story. I'm amazed that such a good book provides such a bad CD. The practice questions are loaded with incorrect answers and I never did figure out how to view the answers on the Router Sim questions. Do yourself a favour: get the book, but TOSS THE CD.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, horrible CD
Review: I found the book to be very informative. Odom's style of writing gives the material a flow and interest that is pleasantly surprising. If you don't feel particularly comfortable with IP addressing and subnetting, chapter 6 will definitely change that.
The CD is another story. I'm amazed that such a good book provides such a bad CD. The practice questions are loaded with incorrect answers and I never did figure out how to view the answers on the Router Sim questions. Do yourself a favour: get the book, but TOSS THE CD.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I found this to be an excellent book in preparing for the 640-607 CCNA exam. The CD-ROM contains many errors (no the authors fault) but will give you a good idea / simulation of the actual test. I passed the test on the first try with a 962. This book is all you need for sucess. Robert S Garrison, CCNA
Rating:
Summary: This is the book for the 640-607
Review: I have been studying for the CCNA for about 2 years and have read many good books in preparation for the test. However, specific content relevant to the 640-607 is simply not included in the older books. Of course, I don't think I could have passed without the wonderful books by Todd Lammle who seems to have a knack for making impossible concepts understandable. Heather Osterloh and Anthony Chiarella are other good authors who provide relevant, practical information. And many others. But, for me, this was the book with the current, relevant information needed to pass the test. The current test will be unavailable at the end of September, so it is impossible to determine how well this information will relate to the new exam. Nonetheless, the practical, understandable material will certainly overlap all of the objectives. Thanks Wendell Odom.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I haven't finished reading this yet but feel confident that I will pass my CCNA on the first attempt. After reading the Sybex CCNA study guide I did not feel as confident, especially when I started finding numerous contradictions within the text and between the CD flashcards and the book. This text is very in depth but very readable as well. After looking at several CCNA study guides I believe this one is the best. As it should be considering it is from Cisco Press!
Rating:
Summary: The best thing I found
Review: I passed the CCNA easily first time. I used basically this book to prepare. Each chapter consists of a pretest, foundation summaries, the main exposition, essay style study questions, and some scenarios. The book also includes a CD. The CD contains a PDF of the whole book plus a quizzer engine. Complaints: The quizzer questions were generally useful though there were a few errors. There were also a few annoying errors in the book. I wish the quizzer would refer you to a specific page of the pdf and/or a URL on Cisco's website. When you know you're studying chapter four and you miss a study question in chapter four, it's not helpful to be referred to chapter four. Praise: The writing style is dry and dense, but understandable as long as you read slowly and follow the examples. He drew real-world analogies whenever possible and I found these useful for mastering the concepts. I think this is the best material out there for self study for the CCNA, especially if you will be going for more advanced certifications afterwards. The competition: Specifically comparing this to Todd Lammle's book/Simulator: I found that although Lammle's book told you the answers, I didn't really understand it as well as I did with this book. Bonus: The book has open-ended essay style questions for each of the chapters. Most of them required a little synthesis on the part of the student, as opposed to just finding the answer and copying it down. You remember better if forced to summarize in your own words and educational research backs this up. If you answer in complete sentences, you'll end up with useful review notes for three years down the pike when you have to recertify. The bottom line: I didn't see anything better out there.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Preparation Guide, but ...
Review: I realized the following: - This book covers only 80% of what will appear on the exam; you are on your own for the rest 20% (other books, practical experience, tests, classes etc.) - Of course, no book will cover all topics on the exam; Just that, be aware of it. - The attached CDROM contains a test with good questions, but simply too many errors to be considered reliable. I suppose they didnt do quality control check on the CDROM material, before publishing ... which is bad. - Despite the limitations, the book is well organized and written, provides a good strong foundation to both taking the exam and also a good reference.
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