I'm just going to write this review off the top of my head, so I apologize in advance for any rambling & lack of coherency. First off, this boxed set is basically the regular Cisco ICND1 & ICND2 books (that you can buy separately, on their own, or together in the Amazon listing titled "CCNA Official Exam Certification Library (Exam 640-802), Third Edition (Containing ICND1 and ICND2 Second Edition Exam Certification Guides)") in a box with an accompanying bonus CD. So all you really get in addition to buying the books separately is a CD that contains what are essentially practice labs in a router sim. When bundled together, Amazon sells the books for $37.79 but this item is $125.99 (at the time of this review, at least), so you're paying about a $90 premium for just the extra simulator CD. In hindsight, me buying this item was a bad idea. I'm going to review the bonus CD you get and leave my review of the books in the item listing for that particular book so look there if you want my humble opinion. As for the CD, I really didn't find it useful and actually quit using it about halfway through my ICND1 studying. On the CD you get a ton of labs in a practice simulator. The labs are basically a run-through of the problems in the book, so if you find actually doing the problems instead of just reading about them that much more helpful, then good for you. Otherwise, they're just a rehashing of what's in the book. Wasn't worth it for me, at least. The simulation software could have been made better, as well. You could not resize the window and it's pretty small to begin with. Also, you had to open the instructions for each sim in a separate PDF file, so be prepared to print out a LOT of instructions (about 3 pages per sim, and there are a lot of sims), or get a second monitor that you can flip to portrait mode. Simply clicking back & forth from the sim to the pdf windows was extremely annoying. Additionally, the Boson sim software that comes packaged with each individual book actually has a much more friendly interface that mimics what you'll find on exam day. Shame on Cisco Press for letting a third-party have sim software that mirrors the exam sim software but your own software doesn't.... Most of the sims are very short & quick which also is somewhat annoying given the process of reading the problem in the PDF and then using the software. To just learn the basic commands, I would recommend that you Google & download Cisco's Packet Tracer which is basically the lab simulator without any pre-planned problems. In a sort of summary - the Boson software that comes packaged with each individual book is a much better product. It is much more similar to the actual exam simulator and is a lot easier to use. It doesn't have nearly the same number of problems on this bonus CD, but it covers a decent amount of the material and should give you enough practice with the look & feel of the Cisco IOS. Maybe if this boxed set was only $20 more than the two books combined, I would recommend it, but I think the $90 extra is just absurd for the quality of what you get. Oh - and don't buy any used copies of this boxed set, either. The bonus CD comes with an activation code that can (supposedly) only be used once. If the person selling the used copy activated it, you could be out of luck on it altogether. Not worth the risk in my opinion. As a side note - the books themselves are quite good although they only give you about 10 practice questions for each chapter (not nearly enough). Also, the Boson practice exam (in each individual book) was pretty tough & covered some material not in the book at all (kind of stupid since you're supposed to take it after reading the book). Anyway, there you go.