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Hey guys,

Passed my CWNA about a month ago and now going to be starting out on the CWAP.  I've bought the bundle, the book, and Gast's books, so here's my preliminary thinking:

1.)  Gast's 802.11 definitive guide

2.)  Gast's 11n guide

3.)  Gast's 11ac guide

4.)  CWAP E-learning

5.)  CWAP Study Guide

With that said, any advice as to whether I really need to go through all of the definitive guide if I've already passed the CWNA or if I can sort of just refer to it throughout the other steps?

As has often been stressed here before, Study to the Official Objectives.   Not just  one or two (or more)  books.

Much of the CWAP material has to do with frames, and IMO there is no better book than the Definitive Guide to introduce you to those details.  You really need to put it all together and this book will definitely help in that regard.  It's also arranged better than the .11 standard - well, at least from a learning perspective.  It also explains some of the ambiguities in the standard that are left as "holes" there.

His other books are in no-way complete, and really without the DG, they are only summaries of the changes in each new version.

I haven't seen the latest version of the official training materials, but you'll also want to be able to  "read" spectrum analyzer screen shots, and be able to identify what's in them.   One of the original problems in the CWNP materials was that they printed almost everything in black and white, and it took extra effort to find the color equivalents - go find them !  Make yourself up a separate scrap book of them. 

 Read & look at everything MetaGeek.com has to say.   Get yourself one of their dual-band dongles too.

Study like crazy, as I'm sure that after you've finished the test, you will say there were many questions that were not covered in the book.

Remember, the CWAP, CWSP, and CWDP are the Professional Level certifications, so you should expect these tests to be much harder than the CWNA.

Best of luck !

Thank you, Howard.

The only problem I have with the idea of 'study to the official objectives' is that typically, and this was the same in the Cisco world, the objectives are very vague and while they describe some of what is on the exam, they obviously don't give a great idea of how to measure your current state against those objectives.

Fortunately my company is paying for the training materials so I was able to get the e-learning bundle as well as the book.  I find the videos really help cement some of the knowledge.

I would still go by the objectives and study/read on each one of them from SOME source.   You can concentrate on what is also covered in the other training materials, but don't skip anything completely.

I failed a CWNP exam because I did that once when I was in a hurry - and I've had to pay for most of my certs myself.

Don't rush.