GCIH exam soon,need advice

Higgsx

Hello all.
I've scheduled GCIH exam on June 9. Read all books,did almost all labs but everything in my head just seems little confused.

For those,who have passed GCIH exam, what advice will you give to prepare well for the exam?

cyberguypr

Did you already make your index or take the practice tests?

Higgsx

I'm making my own index and I didn't yet start practice tests. Maybe at the of this week I write practice tests.

TechGromit

Higgsx wrote: »

I'm making my own index and I didn't yet start practice tests. Maybe at the of this week I write practice tests.

What I recommend is first go through all the books and make an good index BEFORE you take you first practice test. When your taking the 1st practice test have a notepad nearby and write down stuff the test asks you but isn't on your index. I find no matter how good your index is, there will be questions they ask you that are not in your index. Use this information to improve your index and use the report your given at the end of the test what you need to brush up on. Once your finished improving your index and studied concepts you didn't do well on the first practice test, take the 2nd test. Again write down questions asked, but are not on your index, to further refine your index before taking the exam.

A good index will have Topic, Book number, Tab # or Page Number, short description of topic. I print mine out landscape and make the columns long enough to fill the page. If I can answer a question just using the index, without looking up the topic, I can save a lot of time. I try to cram as much info in the description field as possible.

Some people have suggested printing out the practice exams questions and take them with you when you take the exam to reference. I'm not even sure how you would do this, maybe with a video camera, or a front end to capture your whole session while taking the practice exams, I'm sure this would violate the SANS practice test agreement. While it's true a few questions on the practice tests will be on the exam, they are mostly conceptual questions, and without a good way to index the questions from the practice exams to look them up, they will be a hindrance, instead of a benefit.

When taking the exam, try not to rush, if you understand the concepts, chances are you can fly though those questions, and use more time to look up questions your not sure about or don't know. I've yet to run out of time on any practice tests or exams, even when I try to take my time, I usually have more then 30 minutes remaining when finished.

You can skip up to five questions and go back to them, but you cant take a break with unanswered questions. One of my SANS instructors claimed that there will be nothing on the test that will help you answer a question you skipped, but I have run across answers to questions I wanted to skip while looking up answers for questions later in the test. So I'm not sure is skipping questions is a good or bad thing.

While I do not have confirmed information on this, from what I heard about the practice exams, the questions are pulled from a pool of questions. If true, it's highly likely the exams are the same way. Questions pulled from a pool means no two exams will be the same. Could very well boil down to the luck of the draw, if your exam is easy or hard.

Higgsx

Thank you so much for your reply and advice.
I did first practice test and unfortunately got 76% with bad index(with just 5 pages) and practically I didn't use that index much. Most of the questions I answered without index pages.

I'm adding more and more items to my index and I'm now on fourth book on worms.
This week I will finish fourth and fifth book,then I'm going to do Capture The Flag lab then I will take 2nd practice test.