Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

The presentation style is dense with prose, and tables are inserted where there are options or variations to memorize. More and larger conceptual diagrams would make this book better, since networking concepts are sometimes hard to grasp. There are quite a few stepped procedures though--most of them geared toward networked Windows machines. Each chapter concludes with a selection of multiple-choice review questions, the answers to which appear--without discussion, unfortunately--in an appendix. Additional questions appear in a drill program on the companion CD-ROM. --David Wall

Average Customer Rating:

Excellent Condition	Customer Rating:
I am overly impressed at the quality of the delivered product deemed used. The delivery was timely and I am most appreciative to the seller.

Gets you certified with easy to read material	Customer Rating:
Fairly easy to follow, covers all the content that is tested. Has many practice tests, flash cards, and the entire book on pdf included. Read this book cover to cover, do the practices, and you will ace the Network + exam.

A good general framework, but not a complete solution

Customer Rating:

I used this book and the "Network+ In Depth" book to study for my certification (I had a lot of time on my hands when I was preparing for it). The Sybex Network+ Study Guide has a good overall structure to it. It is easy to follow and laid out in such a way that you can easily map the sections to the objectives for the certification exam (however, they could have made it even easier to map out). I read through this book, and then wrote my own study guide that mapped directly to the exam objectives, where I would have a section for each objective (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.) with the necessary notes underneath the section header. I found most of the basic info in the Sybex book, but there were certain parts that I had to look up on-line or in the Network+ In Depth book. The Sybex Network+ Study Guide book also comes with some practice exams and electronic flash cards. I used those resources quite extensively and they did a good job relating to the material in the book (although there were somethings that didn't really correspond, if I remember correctly). After preparing for the exam using the Sybex book and CD, I decided to double check that I had covered the right materials. I went online and looked for some practice exams. I was quite shocked by how different the questions were on those practice exams than what was in the Sybex book. It was a good thing that I consulted those other resources, because they certainly helped fill in a lot of the cracks that became increasingly apparent in the Sybex book. When I finally took the Network+ Exam (2007 edition mind you), there were many questions that I was not familiar with, and the wording was also very different (I passed, by the way). I know that this may have something to do with the newer version (2007 Edition) of the test - but the subject matter is supposed to be the same, only some different wording on the questions. Ultimately, this book is good at giving you a general idea of what to expect on the exam, but if you want to pass with satisfactory marks, do not rely solely on this text.

Barely passed exam

Customer Rating:

I just took the Network+ exam today and barely passed. The book has lots of good information, however it does not tell you everything you need to know for the 2007 exam! This book was written for the 2005 exam. Maybe if I took the 2005 exam I would have done much better, but I studied this front to back thoroughly and barely passed. There were many questions I had no clue on, because the book never spoke about it. If you get this book, consider it a foundation, and then get something else that focuses on the 2007 exam. The book has very good information, just keep in mind that you will need to continue further than it gives you.

Great book...if you already know everything

Customer Rating:

The good: I passed the exam with a 729 score. The bad: The book is badly put together, and has some glaring omissions for anyone new to the subject. Just some examples, the discussion on CSMA/CD and CSMA/CA makes no mention in the text that one is for wired Ethernet and the other is for wireless. You do see where each technology is used, in a table 3 pages later, but that is not going to make an impression on anyone learning the subject. I didn't catch it until I missed the question on a Totalsem practice test. Chapter 8 on security also seems very badly arranged and a very quick gloss over of security protocols such as PPTP(not mentioned in Ch.8 but only in Ch.7), L2PT, or IPsec, with no mention of how they work or what they really do. There was also at least one very confusing contradiction. In chapter 5 on network operating systems, the book stated that it is only possible for Windows servers to support Mac clients with special add-on software and only with limited support. Then a few pages later it states that Window NT and 2000 have built in support for Mac clients and that a Mac client won't be able to tell the difference between a Mac and a Windows server. My other complaint is a faulty index. I can't count the number of times that I tried to look in the index to try to review something I had read only to be frustrated. Not to be too hard on the book it is a fairly good book and was my primary textbook for the exam. But don't use it as your only source of information unless your willing to do a lot of your own research on the Internet.