I just thought that I should share my experience without breaking the NDA requirements:
1. Even though I am yet to get my result, the summary of my experience of the exam is that I was
over-prepared for the exam. Meaning that I focused too much on the big things and ignored the small things (which was what the exam focused on mostly).
2. If you already work in security (i have approx. 5 years of work in general IT and 5 in Security), you should be able to answer like 85% using your
experience on your job because they were
mostly common sense questions to be honest. I realised that I should have taken the exam ages ago instead of wasting 24 months reading into too much detail and going through too many questions. I can say that if I had done the exam 3 months into my studying, I would have felt the same way that I did after 24 months. This is the honest truth!
I kept holding my breath through out the exam for when I will begin to see the difficult or unusual questions but they never came! by the time I was on question 240, I had fully heaved a sigh of relief.
To be honest, I didn't know the answer to all the question but they were just very few and I just guessed the answers and moved on.
3. If you do not have work experience in security, then maybe you need to do more studying than I suggested above.
4. I didn't notice any thing unusual about the questions or the format of the exam following the changes after 15th April. Meaning:
the existing materials still apply!
5. I would recommend going through Shon Harris book (or any other highly
recommended book) once, practice exams from all the sources you can lay your hands on and you should be fine for the exam (coupled with the knowledge from your hands on experience).
When practising the questions, go back to the study materials to learn more about question areas that you get wrong.
6. I agree with the different tips that have been given by other people, like:
a.
Read the questions twice
b.
Leave enough time to go over ALL your answers (I realised that I changed like 4 answers and was wondering what I was thinking the first time
)
c.
Take breaks in between. It really helps to clear your brain and to pick the right answers. I think one of the reasons why people fail is not because they do not know the concepts but in the exam situation they get inundated with the text (on a computer screen) of the questions and maybe select the supposedly first right answer that jumps at them. The eyes get tired from the VDU reading for 6 hours and may be affects the brain too. Just saying.:D
d. Any other tips out there
but do not allow anyone to scare you. I was scared/worried a bit, I shouldn't have, in retrospect.
7. Finally, although I agree that people fail the exam, I still think that the exam is not as oppressive/stressful/difficult as I have read on some blogs. I only found the 6 hours too long and took like 6 breaks, shut my eyes for some seconds, lay my head on the table and blanked out (for me, this helps to give a fresh perspective). At a point I felt like ending the exam and walking off.
Er, I used up my time till the very last second....
I will let you know if I pass (given all of the above) at a later time on this thread.
I hope someone finds this information useful.
All the best to the other hopefuls!
