I felt that the book had a lot of good material in it. However, there were areas that it went a great detail into and it really didn't need to. I think this is a good book for someone starting off in the world of networking, especially if you are in the Cisco Networking Academy.

The CD had a lot of good videos. Unfortunately, the questions on the CD for the practice test were full of mistakes. Some questions didn't diplay the complete answers, and some questions had the same answer listed twice. There was a subnetting question that had the wrong answer (I verified this using a subnet calculator).

Since I didn't buy this book for the practice quesions, I didn't let it weigh too heavily in my rating, but mistakes like that could confuse someone trying to pass the CCNA, so it deserved at least 1 star knocked off for that.

If you are using this to prepare yourself for the 640-821 exam, I would accompany it with another practice test purchased from a company that specializes in practice tests. You could probably also accomplish your studying with less expensive books, but I think this book has a lot of good details, and makes a good reference item.

I bought this book for my cisco academy class and consider it a waste of money.It is way too technical for someone just starting out such as myself.It very hard to read and very hard to understand.I bought Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide, 5th Edition (640-801) by todd lammle to use for my class and i can tell you...it is a hundred times easier to read and understand.

The book was perfect, the shipping was fast, the price was the lowest anywhere, and I would recommend this seller to all.

I am using this book in a CCNA semester 1 class. Although it is by Cisco and therefore contains the information they want you to know, it is poorly written. It is as if the original text were 3 times as long, and to shorten it, they had to take out every third sentence, because it does not flow, and concepts are often only half-explained. I am *often* reading it and think "What????" (And I'm fairly certain it's not just me - I have a B.S. and M.S in Computer Science and plenty of real-world computer experience). All in all, I have to say that this is not a high-quality book.

Although it's not a substitute for the CCNA material, I really like the book called "Interconnections" by Radia Perlman.

Cisco seems to have made a transition from being a high performance workstation and server supplier to being a supplier of high end networking equipment. It seems like you cannot go into an Internet Service Provider without seeing at least some Cisco equipment. As such, being an authority on Cisco equipment and even more important understanding the Cisco approach to networking is a good start on employment. And the crowning achievement is the Cisco Certified Network Associate certificate.

This book is a companion to the on line course. It was written by the people who wrote the exam so it covers what you need to know to pass it.