CCNA study guide and study plan
A good CCNA study plan works through the five official domains in the order they build on each other, starting with addressing and subnetting, and pairs every topic with time at a command line. It then targets your weak areas with practice on real show-command output and configuration snippets, rehearses with timed mock exams, and ends when your results hold steady across every domain. The lab time is not optional extra credit. Cisco says the refreshed exam will test practical skills, and most of its objectives are worded as configure, troubleshoot, interpret or diagnose rather than describe.
Know which version you are sitting
The CCNA exam keeps the code 200-301 but changes version on 3 February 2027, when Cisco replaces v1.1 with v2.0, the first major change to the blueprint since 2019. The current exam stays live until that date. This plan, and our revision notes and questions, follow the v2.0 exam topics.
If your exam date is before 3 February 2027, Cisco’s own advice is that there is no reason to change course: keep studying for the current version and check its exam topics on the Cisco Learning Network. Most of the routing, switching, addressing and security material carries across. The clearest addition in v2.0 is the AI, and network operations and management domain, which covers agentic AI, prompting a generative AI system for network work, SNMP, syslog and Ansible.
Phase 1: Orient and set up a lab (the first week)
Start by reading the official v2.0 exam topics end to end and setting up somewhere to type commands. Cisco lists Cisco Modeling Labs among its training options, and its certification page recommends practising with routers and switches in a lab. Any environment that runs IOS-style configuration will do, as long as you use it every week.
Then answer a short practice session cold. It shows you quickly whether subnetting is already automatic for you, which decides how long Phase 2 needs to spend on the first domain. Note too that the exam description says it may ask you to evaluate output and recommendations from agentic AI and digital network assistants, so get used to judging whether a suggested command or diagnosis is actually right.
Phase 2: Work through the domains in build order (the bulk of the plan)
The domains are best studied in the official order, because each one assumes the one before. For every topic, read the lesson, build or break it in your lab, then do a practice session on that topic and read the explanation for every option, including the ones you ruled out.
- Network infrastructure and connectivity: cable and interface faults, hypervisors and containers, IPv4 addressing and subnetting, IPv6 addressing and EUI-64, wireless principles, client connectivity on Windows, macOS and Linux, and DHCPv4 client, server and relay. Do not leave this domain until you can subnet quickly and accurately without a calculator.
- Switching and network access: trunks, EtherChannel with LACP and SVIs, edge ports for phones, access points and other hosts, CDP and LLDP, troubleshooting with show commands, ping, traceroute and packet capture output, and Rapid PVST+ with PortFast and the guard features.
- IP routing: reading a routing table to find the next hop, IPv4 and IPv6 static routes including floating statics, single-area OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 adjacencies and DR/BDR selection, and the operational status of HSRP and VRRP.
- Network services and security: local and AAA management access with TACACS+ and RADIUS, SFTP and SCP, NAT and PAT on IOS XE, DNS record faults, IPsec VPN concepts, standard and extended IPv4 ACLs, and the Layer 2 protections: DHCP snooping, dynamic ARP inspection, storm control, RA guard and port security.
- AI, and network operations and management: the role of agentic AI, choosing a well-formed prompt for network operations, management approaches from device-based to infrastructure as code, SNMP, running commands with Ansible, and reading syslog severity levels and facilities.
Phase 3: Target weak areas with output-based practice (one to two weeks)
Once every domain has been covered, spend your practice time where your results are weakest, and practise in the form the exam favours: a block of show output or a configuration, and a question about what it means. Most CCNA misses come from reading output carelessly, such as missing a wrong subnet mask, a native VLAN mismatch, an interface that is up but not passing traffic, or a route that loses to one with a lower administrative distance.
Sort each incorrect answer by cause. If you misread the output, slow down and practise reading more of it. If you did not know the command or its effect, go back to the lesson and the lab. If the arithmetic let you down, run short daily subnetting drills until the errors stop, because addressing feeds into questions across every domain.
Phase 4: Rehearse with timed mocks, then book
Sit full-length timed mock exams in one session, at the time of day you plan to take the real one. Subnetting and output reading both take time, so the main thing a mock teaches is pacing: notice which question types slow you down and practise those until they stop doing so.
Review every incorrect answer between mocks, and use the cheat sheet for a final pass over commands, port roles, administrative distances and DNS record types in the last few days. Cisco does not publish the number of questions or a passing score, so treat a mock score as a readiness estimate on our scale rather than a prediction of your Cisco result.
Signals you are ready
Book the exam once all of these are true:
- Consecutive full-length mocks clear our pass line with margin, and no domain clearly trails the others.
- You can work out the network, broadcast address and usable range for any IPv4 prefix quickly and without errors.
- Given show output for an interface, trunk, spanning-tree instance, OSPF neighbour or routing table, you can say what is wrong and which command fixes it.
- You can write a standard or extended ACL from a stated requirement and say where it should be applied.
- You can judge whether a suggested fix from an AI assistant would actually solve the problem in front of you.
Plan your prep
Questions, answered
Source
Exam facts in this guide come from the vendor's published exam guide. Vendors revise these — check the source for the current version before you book.