Cisco CCDA Training Kit [Paperback]

The book (it is actually a large PDF file, no computer-based training, as another reader pointed out) is somehow disappointing, in the sense that it is a careless cut-and-paste of good training papers and/or excerpts from pre-existing good and well written books.

Apparently, nobody cared to proofread the result. Just to give you a feeling:
at page 5.13 there is a "network health checklist", which claims to be the same network health checklist of chapter 3, "reported here for reader convenience". Unfortunately, it is different from the "network health checklist" at page 5.31 (8 items to check against 14), which shares the same claim.
There are many forward references to chapters 6,7 and 8, while there are only five modules.
Appendixes are also referred to throughout all the book, but none of them can be found.
You will also enjoy some "deja vu" experience (on page 4.19 and 4.34, for example), and from time to time you'll wonder if you have missed a page.
Sometimes the text is unreadable. For example, at page 3.89 and 4.89.
The ROI analysis for customer ABC at page 5.42 shows how you can draw the wrong conclusions in order to sell a new network project to an "actual customer" (to be honest, this is the only case in which I have found a true error in the book)

In conclusion, the lack of organization in the book makes more difficult to make a synthesis and to grasp the "big picture".

Despite this, the book reflects the exam contents, and the mock exam is very similar to the true one. This can be a good reason to buy the book.

I can provide you with these advices:

1. I have prepared both CCNA and CCDA before taking any actual exam, and passed CCNA two weeks before CCDA. I think it has been a good idea, do the same if you can.

2. Download CCDA exam notes (examnotes.net)... Those notes have a good summarization of all the steps necessary to do a good network design according to Cisco, and they can help you organize the parts of the course oriented towards methodology

3. During the exam, take note of the case studies when they are presented to you. You may want to draw a network map as well. You will leverage those information later, since you will be faced with three or four case studies during the exam, and there will be other subsequent questions on the same case study.

Good luck

The "CBT" is actually just a PDF that has been indexed by the menu-driven "study engine". Except that the PDF was written exclusively from the study engine. This is evident when you start with Chapter 1 and it takes you to page 53 in the PDF. Immediately, the PDF starts referencing material covered in the earlier pages (which you haven't read yet).

Like the other reviewer, I printed out the PDF on a duplexing printer (377 pages on 188 pieces of paper) and am reading the PDF in sequential page order.

THE GOOD: The test engine is very good and will allow me to "familiarlize" myself with the type of questions I might get on the test.