For the last 3 years I would have sworn by Todd Lammle's CCNA Study Guides; mainly do to his free-hearted writing style that seem to add an element of humor to complex reads. However, this book has far too many errors and lacked technical intensity. In the past, I used Todd's 607 Study Guide to pass the archived 607 exam on the first try. Two and half years later, I purchased the 801 Study Guide with the same enthusiasm. After reading this book twice, taking all 8 bonus exams repeatedly, and exhausting the capabilities of the simulation software, I took the comprehensive 801 exam this weekend and did not pass! My exam had multiple questions that were not covered in Lammle's book. Not to mention the lack of coverage of NAT, that seems to magically show up on my exam. None of which was covered with enough detail within this book. Moreover, the Virtual Lab was not exhaustive and far too basic (No OSPF, EIGRP or NAT simulation capabilities). In my opinion, this is not acceptable. Especially when I was faced with these topics through out my exam. I wish this book did a better job of pinpointing the areas that were and would be crucial on the exam. Although Todd Lammle attempted to do place emphasis on certain points, none of those points showed up on test day. Obviously, Cisco has made the exam harder to achieve by reading materials alone (even there own text). Therefore, accurate and thought-provoking supplemental materials are a must!!The bonus questions simply repeat themselves over-and-over again. The book as a whole lacked coverage on crucial technologies and is filled with confusing statements and answers that turn out to be mistakes- Go figure! All of which, led me to give this book 3 stars (maybe closer to 2 1/2).

Mr. Lammle is still an excellent teacher/writer (the best), but the omission of some crucial material is a setup for test disaster. In particular there is little information on NAT, and zero configuration examples. 4 months ago I recertified on the CCNA and one of the simulation questions was NAT configuration and at least 3 multiple choice were on NAT router commands. I am now tutoring 4 other engineers using this book and we've had to use Cisco Press books to cover NAT and other material that is missing. The Simulator in this book will not do OSPF and EIGRP (both crucial, so we bought Mr. Lammle's routersim from www.routersim.com, this does allow these routing protocols, but VTP doesn't work correctly with the simulator switches. In hindsight I would definitely use Cisco Press now, it doesn't appear that Sybex is keeping up. The Cisco books aren't as well written or real world, but they have everything you need to pass the test.

The author has done a good job in writing the book, which provides detailed explanation of all the topics covered in the exam except for NAT/PAT, which is an important objective of the CCNA exam and you can hardly find one CCNA exam that doesn't test your knowledge in that area.

More enhancements on how OSPF works is needed, since it's not covered clearly in the book.

Other than that the book is enough to pass the test except for the points I discussed previously.

One more thing, the bounce exams found in the study tools CD are very workable, never skip them you may encounter the same questions in the exam. I did!

I managed to pass the CCNA exam on my second try with this book. The explanations and examples are clear and straight to the point. The chapters are also arranged in a very systematic way which makes study enjoyable. Trust Todd if you want to pass your CCNA.

Hi all. I would give this book 3.5 stars but I decided to round down. For a 5th edition book, I was shocked with the number of discrepencies and errors! Check the errata on the Sybex Web site for updates - it will save you a lot of frustration. I found many more errors than are listed in the errata, but I am sure that they will keep updating it as people start complaining.

Some of the examples from CLI output are completely wrong as well. VLAN creation on the 1900 comes to mind. I wonder who edited this book?

Also, there is virtually NO coverage of NAT and PAT ... and you should definitely be familiar with these topics! I was fortunate enough to have the NAT section from an ICND course I took two years ago.

The included CCNA CertSim evaluation is awesome, and I recommend upgrading to the full version. The sim questions are very similar to what you will find on the exam.

All that aside, the book does a good job of preparing you for the exam. I used it - along with RouterSim and the aforementioned ICND NAT section - and passed the CCNA exam this morning with over 30 minutes to spare. If I had just used this book, I would have failed. As a matter of fact, no book alone is enough to pass the exam. You need hardware or a good simulator to practice with, or you will be toast when it comes to the exam's sim questions.

Check out the CCNA site on Cisco's Web site for additional exam resources.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you all! :)