SANS GSEC Practice Exam vs. Actual Exam

jabjabsjabjabs Registered Users Posts: 3 ■□□□□□□□□□
in GIAC
Hey everyone,

If you have taken the SANS GSEC certification exam, I was wondering how does it compare to the practice exams? I have taken one of my practice exams and scored fairly well, I was expecting it to be a lot harder.

Any advice and tips would be appreciated.

Many thanks!
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Comments

  • iBrokeITiBrokeIT Member Posts: 1,318 ■■■■■■■■■□
    I believe they both pull from the same pool of questions but I found the actual exam just a little easier (maybe I just took it more seriously?).

    If you score well on both practice exams you should be set! This exam isn't that technically difficult, it is just broad.

    Best of luck to you OP!
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  • JoJoCal19JoJoCal19 Mod Posts: 2,834 Mod
    I found the practice exam for the GSEC to be identical to the actual exam in terms of difficulty. The questions were also in the same format as the actual exam.
    Have: CISSP, CISM, CISA, CRISC, eJPT, GCIA, GSEC, CCSP, CCSK, AWS CSAA, AWS CCP, OCI Foundations Associate, ITIL-F, MS Cyber Security - USF, BSBA - UF, MSISA - WGU
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  • 636-555-3226636-555-3226 Member Posts: 975 ■■■■■□□□□□
    I've always wondered if the practice exams either come from the same pool as the real exam questions or if they're just old exam questions they've taken out of the rotation for various reasons.
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  • hr1stovhr1stov Member Posts: 14 ■□□□□□□□□□
    I found the real exam questions to be a bit more difficult and in depth. With that being said, I scored better on my real exam than the practice ones. The reason could be that I was a lot more focused and prepared by the time I had to take the real exam.
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  • domo arigatodomo arigato Member Posts: 6 ■□□□□□□□□□
    Is the real exam about the same as the practice exams; in terms of having to apply a concept or knowledge to answer a question correctly?
    Some questions on the practice exam were like this, but not all, so I'm wondering if that's an accurate representation of the real exam.
    Does the real exam have a few simpler questions like practice did?
    Thanks in advance, testing next week!!
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  • TechGromitTechGromit Member Posts: 2,151 ■■■■■■■■■□
    I would say they were about the same, I scored 80% on both practice exams and 88% on the exam. During the practice tests and wrote down what areas I was weak on and used it to study those areas and improve my index. My final index ended up being 1800 items, I made a separate index for programs for quick look up what they did and other reference material like sub-netting, common Linux commands, etc. On the exam I tried to manage my time better as well, when I saw I only almost an hour remaining and only 40 questions left to answer, I looked up every question up and still finished with about 30 minutes remaining.
    Still searching for the corner in a round room.
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