CEH Passed - My Advice

in CEH
Hey there TE,
Wanted to share my experience with this certification.
Experience: 10+ years as a sys admin, network engineer and developer. I like change and new challenges.
Reason for getting: HR requirement. Let's face it bite the bullet and get it if you want to work for company 'X' especially in the federal government/DOD space.
What resources did I use: Matt Walker's - CEH Certified Ethical Hacker All-in-One Exam Guide, Third Edition - just get it and read it, follow his advice on approaching the exam and make note of his exam hints throughout the book. Set up a VM of Kali Linux and a VM of Windows XP to lab with.
How much study time: About 30 hours over a two week period.
My approach: The AIO guide has a test engine that I used initially to just get a baseline of where I was at. With this information, I hit my weak spots hard by reading and labbing on the VM OSes. After about a week and a half I took another practice exam and felt ready to take the exam.
The Exam: I took the exam at home through their ProctorU service. Overall good experience and would do again. Two hours later, including the 10 minutes with the proctor to ensure my setting for taking the exam was in compliance, I received my congratulations I passed page!
The exam itself was very straight forward, I did not see but maybe 1 or 2 issues with wording, grammar. Not a fan of the interface, felt very old school html, but still very functional. I just took my time, reviewed a few questions, eliminated the bad answers and chose the best answer for what EC Council was looking for not what my personal bias is.
As to specific tools in the exam, going over chapters 3-7 in the AIO will give you what you need. Just play with them in your lab to get you familiar with them.
TLDR - Use Matt Walker's AIO Exam guide and his practice test engine(about the same level of difficulty on the exam), work on weak spots, schedule and pass your test!
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks TE community for all your help, I hope this gives back a little
Wanted to share my experience with this certification.
Experience: 10+ years as a sys admin, network engineer and developer. I like change and new challenges.
Reason for getting: HR requirement. Let's face it bite the bullet and get it if you want to work for company 'X' especially in the federal government/DOD space.
What resources did I use: Matt Walker's - CEH Certified Ethical Hacker All-in-One Exam Guide, Third Edition - just get it and read it, follow his advice on approaching the exam and make note of his exam hints throughout the book. Set up a VM of Kali Linux and a VM of Windows XP to lab with.
How much study time: About 30 hours over a two week period.
My approach: The AIO guide has a test engine that I used initially to just get a baseline of where I was at. With this information, I hit my weak spots hard by reading and labbing on the VM OSes. After about a week and a half I took another practice exam and felt ready to take the exam.
The Exam: I took the exam at home through their ProctorU service. Overall good experience and would do again. Two hours later, including the 10 minutes with the proctor to ensure my setting for taking the exam was in compliance, I received my congratulations I passed page!
The exam itself was very straight forward, I did not see but maybe 1 or 2 issues with wording, grammar. Not a fan of the interface, felt very old school html, but still very functional. I just took my time, reviewed a few questions, eliminated the bad answers and chose the best answer for what EC Council was looking for not what my personal bias is.
As to specific tools in the exam, going over chapters 3-7 in the AIO will give you what you need. Just play with them in your lab to get you familiar with them.
TLDR - Use Matt Walker's AIO Exam guide and his practice test engine(about the same level of difficulty on the exam), work on weak spots, schedule and pass your test!
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks TE community for all your help, I hope this gives back a little

Comments
I wanted to update and let people know I got a 91 on the test itself. Like I said the best thing to do is get a baseline on what you don't know. And study the heck out of those areas. I do this for all my exams and it has served me well.
Do not just study the questions and hope you see them again, understand why you got it wrong during the practice exams. You will come out further ahead, not only in taking these exams, but in life!
A couple of other things, Safari online has a trial period where you can peruse Matt Walker's book as well as others in their library to see if it works for you:
https://www.safaribooksonline.com/
Also the books practice exam can be found online here:
Total Seminars - Best selling books plus practice exams for A+, Network+, and IC3 certification
Hope these few extra tips help you achieve your goals. Thanks for your time
Answer = Yes
Yes to both. Any labs and resources you can get your hands on will work out in your benefit. It's always good to have your own labs as well.
I'm taking the exam Monday, and both iLabs and my own labs have proven beneficial towards prepping for the exam.
Labs are always good, no matter the source. Getting hands on is what employers want to see and your willingness to explore on your own is great.
I did not see any multiple answer questions, but does not mean they are not out there in the question pool.
AGC1, CLC1, GAC1, INC1, CTV1, INT1, BVC1, TBP1, TCP1, QLT1, HHT1, QBT1, BBC1 (39 CUs), (0 CUs) (0 CUs)
WFV1, BNC1, EAV1, EBV1, COV1 | MGC1, IWC1 | CQV1, CNV1, IWT1, RIT1 | DRV1, DSV1, TPV1, CVV1 | EUP1, EUC1, DHV1| CUV1, C173 | BOV1, CJV1, TXP1, TXC1 | TYP1, TYC1, SBT1, RGT1 (84 CUs) DONE!