(Nearly) Infinite Q&A in the New CCNA Premium Edition Library
The Cisco Press eBook products have a long formal title – so the title gets abbreviated a lot. The abbreviations leave out the end: “and Practice Test,” so people sometimes miss that the product includes practice tests beyond what you get with the printed books. For the Cisco Press CCNA 200-301 Official Cert Guide Library Premium Edition and Practice Test, 2nd Edition product (yes, that’s a long title), the practice tests alone are well worth the full price, with far more questions than other practice test products. Today’s post details those practice tests!
Read this Post, or Watch this Video
I launched the YouTube channel Network Upskill in April 2024. You can watch a video about the same topics in this blog post or keep reading – your choice!
Other Posts/Videos in the 2024 Announcement Series
My current plan has about 10 posts and matching videos related to the 2024 announcements. I made them, and even I’ll get confused about what’s what. So, here’s a repeating reference to the blog posts and matching videos.
- Cisco Reveals CCNA 200-301 Version 1.1 (April 2024)
- Minor CCNA Blueprint Update, but Major Book Updates for 2024
- Which CCNA Blueprint Should You Pursue? Old Versus New (2024)
- Introducing the New CCNA Books and Great Deals (2024)
- The Ultimate Guide to CCNA OCG Practice Exams (2024)
- Enhancing Book CCNA Exams: New Questions for 2024
- (This Post): (Nearly) Infinite Q&A in the CCNA Library Premium Edition, 2nd Edition for 2024
The Exams in the CCNA Premium Edition, 2nd Edition (2024)
The formal and long product name is:
Cisco Press CCNA 200-301 Official Cert Guide Library Premium Edition and Practice Test, 2nd Edition
First, it includes the eBook for the combined CCNA Volume 1 and Volume 2 books in both PDF and ePub formats. (ePub lets you read the book on almost any device or eReader app.)
The title mentions a practice test. The product delivers that as 12 separate exams totaling over 1300 questions!
CCNA “Full” Exams
Eight of those exams deliver a mix of questions across the breadth of all CCNA exam topics and all chapters of the combined CCNA Volume 1 and 2 books. The publisher names these “CCNA Full Exams,” with the “Full” referring to the idea that they cover the full breadth of CCNA topics. Figure 1 shows the general idea, with each exam holding a mix of topics from the Volume 1 and Volume 2 books.
Figure 1: Eight CCNA “Full” Exams in CCNA Premium Edition Library, Second Edition
Why do I think this is a big deal? In the previous post, I wrote about how we worked hard to improve the questions’ quality while increasing the quantity. The increase in quantity allowed us to double the number of CCNA Full exams delivered across the various CCNA Official Cert Guide products for the 2nd Edition products (published in 2024). For perspective, the 1st Edition CCNA Official Cert Guides, published in early 2020, active from 2020 through 2024, had two CCNA full exams in the print edition and four CCNA full exams in the premium edition library (see Figure 2.)
Figure 2: Perspective: CCNA Full Exams, CCNA Library, 1st Edition (Print and Premium)
Figure 3 shows the result of doubling the number of CCNA Full exams for the second edition books published in 2024.
Figure 3: Perspective: CCNA Full Exams, CCNA Library, 1st Edition (Print and Premium)
Using the CCNA Full Exams
You can make good use of these CCNA Full exams using both study mode and practice exam mode. You pick the mode when using the PTP app, and you can use these exams (or any other exams) in both study and practice exam modes.
Use study mode when you want to have a short study session to uncover knowledge gaps. Check the answer and explanation whenever you try to answer a question and get confused. Read more about the topic as needed and fill that gap!
Use practice exam mode to have a timed practice exam event with a timer and a score. In this mode, you cannot check the answer and explanation until you end the exam – but you can do so after you grade your exam. (Note that checking the answers, finding your knowledge gaps, and filling those gaps is far more important than the score on any practice exam!)
Some users want to avoid seeing a question again when using practice questions. For instance, if you take a timed practice exam but you’ve seen some of the questions, you may find the exam a bit easier. Suppose that bothers you, and you want to avoid seeing questions again. In that case, the CCNA OCG Library Premium Edition, Second Edition has more than enough questions, so you can avoid seeing questions a second time – but you have to be purposeful about it!
For example, if you want to take lots of timed practice exams, select only CCNA Full Exam 1 when starting the first one. That is, you only use questions from that exam. For your second event, use CCNA Full Exam 2 and that exam only. And so on. With this strategy, you could have eight timed CCNA practice exam events without seeing the same questions again!
Figure 4: Example 1: Using All Eight CCNA Full Exams for Practice Exam Events
Many people like the idea of occasional practice questions whenever the mood hits. You may spend three to nine months studying for CCNA, depending on how much time you can devote each week. Using some of the CCNA Full exams as a source of occasional gap analysis can be a valuable part of your long-term study plan.
To do that, note a few exams to use in study mode – and avoid using those for timed exam events. Make a note of it in your study notebook. Figures 5 and 6 show two similar scenarios, the first reserving three exams for study mode and the second reserving five exams for study mode.
Figure 5: Example 2: Using 3 Exams in Study Mode, the Rest as Practice Exams
Figure 6: Example 6: Using 5 Exams in Study Mode, the Rest as Practice Exams
Don’t Miss This!!! Each Question Links to the Book PDF!!!
In the Premium Edition products from Cisco Press, which include a PDF of the related book, all the questions include a link to the book PDF. So, when you want more information about the topic in a question, click the hyperlink. But many people do not notice the feature – so I’m trying to get the word out!
First, if you own the CCNA Library Premium Edition and open that product in the PTP app (web app or desktop app), the links will appear in the correct place. The app will supply the PDF – you do not need to install or copy it to a specific folder. The links just work, as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Concept: Each Exam’s Questions Link to the Book PDF
The app reveals the link at the bottom of a question’s answer page. So, how do you get to a question’s answer page?
- In study mode, each question has an “answer” button enabled – click that to reveal the answer page.
- In practice exam mode, the app disables the answer button on each question. Instead, you must grade your exam and then review your results. That interface lists all the questions in your exam and whether you got them right. You can then open individual questions, displaying the question again… now with the answer button enabled. Then click the answer button.
Once you reach any answer page, the content is organized into three parts, as shown in Figure 8. The three main features of each page are:
- Answers: The top lists the answers, copied from the question, with the correct answers highlighted in yellow.
- Explanation: Text that explains why the correct answers are right and the wrong answers are wrong. This text has to do with this specific question.
- Book hyperlink: Text of a heading in the book, in blue. It does not say “hyperlink” or “link to the book PDF.” It’s just text at the bottom of the page.
Figure 8: “Answer” Page Components: Answers (Right/Wrong), Explanation, Hyperlink to PDF
Use the answer page to discover gaps! Find questions you missed. Maybe the explanation is all you need to read to close the gap! If not, click the link and read more about the topics covered by the question in the book.
Other Exams in the CCNA OCG Library Premium Edition
In addition to the eight CCNA Full exams, the new CCNA OCG Library Premium Edition, Second Edition, out in 2024, includes four other exams. The ideas behind these exams are straightforward and probably familiar to most of you who have used the books before.
First, the book chapters begin with a pre-chapter quiz called a “Do I Know This Already” or DIKTA quiz. As depicted in Figure 9, the publisher copies these questions from each book into an exam in the PTP app. When you buy the CCNA Library Premium Edition, you get two related exams: One with Book questions from Volume 1 and the other with Book questions from Volume 2.
Figure 9: The Two Book Exams Included with the CCNA OCG Library Premium Edition
The product also includes Part Review exams, which are meant to be used during Part Review throughout your study journey. For perspective, the two-book set for 2024, the Second Editions, has 53 chapters, which we organize into 13 parts, as shown in Figure 10.
Figure 10: The Part Organization in the CCNA Official Cert Guides
Organizing 50-plus chapters into Parts gives the books more structure and organization – but I do that as part of the study plan described in the first pages of Volume 1. I strongly believe that everyone should take time to study and review occasionally rather than saving those activities for after they finish reading the books. So, as shown in Figure 11, each Part ends with a Part Review element (just a few pages) that suggests some study activities. Those always point you to the Part Review exams in PTP, asking you to answer all the Part Review questions related to that part of the book.
Figure 11: The Part Review Exams Included with the CCNA OCG Library Premium Edition
As with the Book exams, the CCNA OCG Library Premium Edition includes two related exams: A Part Review exam for Volume 1 and another for Volume 2.
How Many Questions?
Yeah, it’s a lot of questions. It’s more than most people will answer. You do NOT need to answer them all! Honestly, I didn’t set about with a goal to create so many – it was a side-effect of the process of removing, re-writing, filling holes, and writing for new content. But the volume of questions turns out to be great news: If you want practice questions, we have you covered! If you buy the print books, they have a ton, while the premium edition has about 400 more.
If you want to go big, the new CCNA OCG Library Premium Edition, Second Edition, weighs in at over 1300 questions, as shown in Figure 12. Let me know how much you use these and what you think!!
Figure 12: The 12 Exams in the CCNA OCG Library Premium Edition, Second Edition
Key Links
Here are a few helpful links related to the announcement.
Wendell Odom
Cisco Press
Note: Pages for the new products will be available 1-2 days AFTER Cisco’s blueprint announcement.
Cisco
- Cisco Certification Roadmap: www.cisco.com/go/certroadmap
- Cisco CCNA page: www.cisco.com/go/ccna
- Cisco Learning Network CCNA community