Cisco CCNA Study Guide — 200-301 v1.1

Preparing for the Cisco CCNA exam (200-301 v1.1)? This is the complete study guide — six chapters covering all six official Cisco domains, written in plain language for working engineers, help-desk staff moving up, and anyone who wants to actually understand networking rather than memorise phrases.

The real exam, per Cisco: a single 120-minute exam (US$300 via Pearson VUE), graded pass/fail, with no formal prerequisites. Pass it and you are CCNA certified; the certification is valid for 3 years. Cisco publishes the domain weights — Network Fundamentals 20%, Network Access 20%, IP Connectivity 25%, IP Services 10%, Security Fundamentals 15%, Automation and Programmability 10% — and this guide is built to exactly that shape. Cisco does not publish an exact question count or a fixed passing score for 200-301, so this guide never invents either.

Version notice: this package is built for 200-301 v1.1, for candidates testing before February 2, 2027. Cisco has announced v1.1's last test day is February 2, 2027, with v2.0 following on February 3, 2027 under the same exam code.

What's inside:

- Chapter 1 — Network Fundamentals: device roles, architectures, cabling, TCP vs UDP, private addressing — and subnetting taught as a speed skill, with a four-step method, VLSM design examples, and drills

- Chapter 2 — Network Access: VLANs and 802.1Q trunking (including the native-VLAN trap), router-on-a-stick vs SVIs, CDP/LLDP, EtherChannel with LACP, Rapid PVST+ and its guards, wireless architecture and AP modes

- Chapter 3 — IP Connectivity: reading the routing table, the three forwarding rules (longest prefix, administrative distance, metric) with graded worked cases, static routing IPv4/IPv6, single-area OSPFv2 end to end, first hop redundancy (HSRP/VRRP/GLBP)

- Chapter 4 — IP Services: NAT and PAT, NTP, DHCP and DNS, SNMP, syslog severity levels, QoS per-hop behaviour, SSH configuration, TFTP/FTP

- Chapter 5 — Security Fundamentals: threats/vulnerabilities/exploits, device hardening, password policy and MFA, IPsec VPNs, ACLs taught as a method (evaluation drills included), DHCP snooping, DAI, port security, AAA, WPA/WPA2/WPA3

- Chapter 6 — Automation and Programmability: controller-based networking, SDN overlay/underlay/fabric, northbound and southbound APIs, generative and predictive AI in network operations (new in v1.1), REST APIs and CRUD, Ansible and Terraform, reading JSON

Every chapter carries worked examples and real IOS command references — the exam expects you to read show output, so the guide trains you on it.

Files included (1): ccna-study-guide.pdf — the complete 6-chapter guide (100 pages)

Want practice questions too? The Deluxe tier adds the full 500-question practice bank and the cheat sheets, plus license-key access to the online practice hub.

Independent study material. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Cisco.