Preparing IT certification exams is a significant undertaking whether you're just out of college or have been in IT field for years. IT professionals are continuously demanded to acquire new knowledge in order to perform well on their jobs as new technology in IT industry emerged at a pace that has never been seen before. While tests in colleges emphasizing on measuring the systematic understanding of theoretic foundation of a subject, industry certification exams focus on evaluation of hands-on experience.

Thorough planning before the exams will boost your confidence, increase chance of success, and save time of preparation in your certification exams.

1. Assess whether you're ready

To answer the question of whether you're ready to pursue a particular IT certification - MCSE, MCSA, MCSD, CCIE, CCNA or CCNE certification, you may want to examine the questions from the latest certification exams to identify the gap between what you've known and what you need to know. It's not advisable to prepare an IT certification exam heavily based on working on actual certification questions or braindumps, but braindumps do offer values in preparing your tests. You'll learn the format of the exams, the scope of the exams and your weakest link in the subject.

2. Plan when you'll be ready

One certification usually requires the pass of several tests. Once you've made up your mind about taking the certification exams, the plan of when to take those tests depends on your career needs, domain knowledge, hands-on experience, availability of study materials and availability of your time to prepare the tests. Besides the official certification guide and reading materials published by vendors or authorized organizations, there're numerous other helpful learning materials available online or in print.

Use of Computer Based Training software is a very effective way to speed up your IT certification preparation. For instance, CBT Planet (Computer Based Training Planet) provides IT professionals comprehensive vendor-co developed self-study IT courses, by Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, SAP, Linux and more.

3. Prepare the exams step-by-step

a) Briefly scan all chapters of official publications and make a detailed plan.

b) Study the materials chapter by chapter in details and take notes.

c) Review your notes and summarize all chapters.

d) Take sample exams

e) Work on your weak spots.

Now, you're ready for your IT certification exams.

Copyright @2005, Bruce Zhang

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Bruce Zhang has over 10 years of experience in architecting and developing large-scale Web-based applications, and designing enterprise strength databases. Computer Based Training has been a valuable tool for gaining new IT knowledge in his career.