Passed icdn1 956/1000. Can't believe I did that...

Lurker, first post here. So I was totally freaking out about this exam. Preface: I am enrolled at WGU. I let me advisor know I was ready for the exam and they sent me the voucher. I went to look at the testing schedule and the only times that fit my days off from work was the end of march (last week of the term) or two days away! Nervously I chose the two days away one. (If I failed , wgu pays for 1 retake. I could still take it in this term.)I crammed like crazy for 36 hours strait. I am still amazed that I did that well. I felt totally unprepared.

Study materials: CBT nuggets- amazing for understanding the core concepts and seeing commands in action, -uCertify's pearson CISCO icdn 1 100-105 official cert guide- good for the specific stuff. Commands, interface settings, etc... -Wgu's practice questions and exam- great and terrible. They had about the same level and complexity of the questions you see on the exam, except they are written terribly and have typos. (Kills me) -Boson net sim- didn't use it -Packet tracer- fantastic for really knowing the commands and the "show (output)" stuff. I cannot recommend this enough ...especially be familiar with you show commands. You can find premade labs online that cover the topics in the exam very well: basic iOS set up, static routes, rip, etc. -Boson practice exams.- helpful but almost detrimental. They were way harder than the exams. I got 60-70% on them. They had topics that weren't covered on the exam. I studied those items but I feel like it was wasted time. Maybe 2 or 3 items from them came up on the actual exam? Not to mention the stress and anxiety of seeing a 60% score on a practice THE BLOODY NIGHT BEFORE....gah..

One thing that helped much more than I thought was definitely this subreddit, and the advice/content. A few people posted cheat sheets (study sheets) from a class they did and I picked up a question on the exam from that. Many folks post their own "I passed" posts and dropped subtle hints, "like I never expected an RFC question". Those posts helped quite a bit.

It was much more general concept knowledge than specifics that I thought, the labs were more troubleshooting than config and set-up, there were much fewer "trick questions" than I thought. Just remember every word they put in an answer is deliberate. If you know that, it makes the correct answer easier to find.

I really felt like I over prepared and stressed a little too hard over it, but I guess it's better to over prepare than under.

Other test taking notes: Peppermints by them selves or with chocolate have been proven to increase brain function. Test center has a giant bowl of peppermints for this! Also certain essential oils do the same thing. Rosemary has some good clinical data behind it. Wife made me a little tincture I put on my wrist before an exam.

Hope this helps. Thanks again for all the helpful posts.