Week 1: Subnetting until it is boring
Nothing else until you can solve any /24-/30 in under a minute and /16-/23 without panic. Use the subnet calculator to check work, then the drills for speed. Every later topic (VLANs, routing, troubleshooting) assumes this fluency.
Weeks 2-3: Switching, VLANs, wireless
VLANs and trunks as one story (separate traffic, tag it between switches, route between VLANs), STP keeping loops away, port security basics. Wireless: standards and frequencies in one comparison table you rewrite from memory weekly. Ports and protocols get drilled alongside, DHCP, DNS, and SNMP show up everywhere here.
Weeks 4-5: Routing, services, and the methodology
Static vs dynamic routing concepts, NAT, common services, cloud and virtualization networking. And the troubleshooting methodology IN ORDER. The exam rewards process over hunches, and half the scenarios are methodology questions wearing technical clothes.
Week 6: Simulate and verify
Full sittings under time, then patch-only study on missed domains. Book when fresh simulations agree you are ready. Network+'s 720 bar punishes thin topics, and thin topics are always the ones you skipped because they felt new (cloud, virtualization).
The troubleshooting order (memorize verbatim)
Identify the problem, establish a theory, test the theory, establish a plan of action, implement or escalate, verify full functionality, document findings. The exam dresses this in scenarios: 'which step next' after gathering symptoms is theory; after a fix works is verification then documentation. Skipping documentation is the classic wrong answer. It is always a step, never optional.
Cables without tears
Twisted-pair categories with speed and distance (Cat5e/6/6a for copper runs, fiber for backbone and long haul), straight-through vs crossover (rarely asked directly, often assumed), and connector recognition by sight. Pair each cable with its failure mode: attenuation over distance, crosstalk in bundles, interference near power.
The sim types you'll meet
Subnet design ('fit these departments into this block'), VLAN/trunk config ('separate these groups'), cable-tester interpretation ('which fault does this result show'), topology completion ('place the missing device'), Wi-Fi placement ('cover this floor with two APs'), and CLI troubleshooting (ping, tracert, nslookup, arp in sequence). Practice each as a procedure with the exam's own verbs: design, separate, interpret, place, cover, diagnose.
Practise with labs and PBQs
Those sim types are the reason a video course alone will not get you past 720. The N10-009 pack holds 39 performance-based questions and 71 labs, most of them Cisco-style console tasks over a small topology, graded on the configuration you leave behind (counts from the live catalogue).
Map them onto the plan instead of saving them for the end. Week 1 is paper and the subnet drills only, because subnetting is the one skill where speed comes from repetition and nothing else. Weeks 2 and 3 take the trunk, VLAN and port-security tasks. Weeks 4 and 5 take routing, DHCP relay and the troubleshooting tasks, which start from a network that is already broken. Week 6 is mixed sittings, no new lab types.
One habit matters more than volume: before you touch a device, write the intended path — source, destination, protocol, port — and the command that would prove it. The Network+ lab catalogue sorts by objective so you can choose the task that matches the section you just read, and the resources comparison explains what each platform is for when you want a second environment.
Keep one comparison table
OSI vs TCP/IP layers, wireless standards, cable types and distances, routing protocols: one page you maintain all six weeks. Rewriting it weekly is the review.
The six-week calendar
- Week 1: addressing and subnetting. Binary once, block sizes forever. Drill until /26 is instant.
- Week 2: switching and VLANs. Frames, MAC tables, trunks, STP, EtherChannel basics, port security.
- Week 3: wireless and network services. Standards, channels, antennas, DHCP, DNS, NTP, SNMP, syslog.
- Week 4: routing and wide area links. Static and dynamic routing concepts, NAT, QoS, VPN types, cloud connectivity.
- Week 5: security, operations, and troubleshooting. ACLs, device access, monitoring, the seven-step method, and the tools.
- Week 6: simulations and review. Two full sittings, patch-only study, then book.
The calendar assumes five focused hours a week. If you have ten, compress the first four weeks into two and keep two full weeks for simulation and review. Do not compress the simulation weeks.
Labs to run, in order
Build the network before you troubleshoot it. Cable two switches, create two VLANs, trunk them, and confirm that hosts in the same VLAN can talk while hosts in different VLANs cannot. Add a router and route between the VLANs. Break something on purpose: wrong mask, wrong gateway, a shut port, a duplicate address. Then diagnose it with only the tools the exam names.
For wireless, configure an access point with two SSIDs, one on each band, and a guest network. For services, stand up DHCP and DNS on a small lab network and point one client at each. For security, write an ACL that permits one management subnet and denies everything else, then prove both directions. Every lab should end with a verification step, because the exam grades the outcome, not the intent.
Services and ports you must read fluently
You do not need every port in the world. You need the ones that turn a symptom into a diagnosis: 53 DNS, 67 and 68 DHCP, 80 and 443 web, 22 SSH, 23 Telnet, 25 and 587 mail, 110 and 143 mail retrieval, 161 and 162 SNMP, 389 and 636 LDAP, 445 SMB, 3389 RDP, 123 NTP, 514 syslog. Learn each with its protocol and job. UDP DNS behaves differently from TCP DNS, and the exam uses that difference.
Add the network services around those ports: a DHCP scope with an exclusion range, a DNS record type that points one name at another, an NTP hierarchy, and a syslog severity scale. Questions rarely ask for definitions. They describe a failure and expect you to name the service.
If subnetting is already easy
Skip week 1's drills but keep five minutes a day of maintenance. Move the freed week into wireless and routing, the two areas where confident network people still lose points. Then use the last two weeks for full simulations and lab repairs. Your risk is not arithmetic; it is assuming the exam phrases familiar ideas the way your job does.
Exam day and after
Read the whole question before touching the exhibit. Network+ exhibits often carry the detail that rules out two answers. Answer the performance-based questions first, flag anything that resists 90 seconds, and keep an eye on the clock: the exam rewards pace as much as knowledge.
After the exam, the score report lists domain percentages. A pass still tells you which domain is weakest, which is useful if CCNA or Security+ is next. A fail tells you exactly where to study, and the retake should focus there plus one full simulation. Do not buy a new course. Patch the listed domains and sit again while the rest is still warm.
After Network+
Network+ is the bridge. Security+ builds on the ports, protocols, and troubleshooting habits you just made automatic. CCNA goes deeper into Cisco configuration and expects more command fluency. If you are unsure, take Security+ next: it widens the jobs you can apply for, while CCNA narrows toward network operations.