Passed ccse ngx..3rd try

Hey all,

Just barely passed the ccse ngx exam. 70% was pass, I got a 73%. Last time I took it I knew it was going to be close and I just missed it with a 66%. Same again this time as I knew it was going to be close but this time it was a pass. I signed up for the exam last week and this was NOT the 156-315.1. Pearsonvue still gives you the ability to sign up for the original exam (156-315) and I contacted them and checkpoint and they both assured me it would be the original 156-315 and not the new version.

Very tough exam and not much else to say as I included the details in another post when I failed it previously. Best advice I can give is read up on all the pdf's on checkpoint's web site under R60 documentation. Those and the syngress configuring ngx book were all I used. Only practice tests available were from Boson and the quality is very poor (much like their ccsa ngx practice tests). My weak point every time I took it was advanced vpn. Did much better this time on Qos, clusterxl, and Voip. Real world experience is essential. I only have about 7 months experience with checkpoint but studied so hard that I could pass but it still took 3 tries. I believe if I had over a year experience and studied just as hard I would have passed it on the 1st or 2nd attempt. But very happy to finally get it so I can move on to PIX.

If anyone has any questions (other than exact questions that I saw) let me know.

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Webmaster

Congratulations! That's a nice one to add to the list

I was wondering if you could compare the difficulty of the CCSE to CCSA, and to other exams, such as your MCP or CCNA.

Only practice tests available were from Boson and the quality is very poor (much like their ccsa ngx practice tests)

I noticed there's a gap in the market there, which surprises me somewhat because Checkpoint is a popular product, and their certs have always been respectable. I've tried to find someone to write a set of CCSA practice questions for us, without success so far. I guess the commercial practice test providers are having similar difficulties as I'm sure there's a market. And finding a certification book is just as hard. Anyway, I hope all that will change and I'd like to see a growing Checkpoint section here.

Good luck with the CCSP track!

mikej412

Congratulations!

Webmaster wrote:

I was wondering if you could compare the difficulty of the CCSE to CCSA, and to other exams, such as your MCP or CCNA.

Yeah! And when you get into the CCSP exams, could you do a "compare and contrast" to that new ASA/PIX exam?

jsond

Webmaster wrote:

I was wondering if you could compare the difficulty of the CCSE to CCSA, and to other exams, such as your MCP or CCNA.

Thank you for the congrats! The ccsa I passed on the 1st try and found the ccse to be much, much more difficult. Both are very straight-forward (all multiple choice, one answer only questions. I guess the thing that made the ccse so difficult for me was the questions that I don't apply at work, such as QoS and VoIP. None of our checkpoint customers utilize either of those for the service we provide so it was all pdfs and the syngress book. The fact I never improved on the advanced vpn topics surprised me. We do use that a bit at work and I really tried to concentrate on it big time after the 2nd fail. I don't think real world experience is necessary for the ccsa. When I was studying for it I had only a month of checkpoint experience. But the ccsa is more geared towards the rule base, NAT, and smartdefence. I work for a security co. so the smartdefense was topics that I have some experience with. I just created my own networks, rules, hosts, etc and that was a big help for most of the other topics.

I noticed there's a gap in the market there, which surprises me somewhat because Checkpoint is a popular product, and their certs have always been respectable.

I totally agree and am very surprised there is not more ccsa and especially ccse ngx resources available. Boson has the only practice tests and they are very poor quality. Not a knock on them as their practice tests in the past are very high quality. But with them being the only ones to release anything for ngx it is a bit understandable about the lack of quality. And only one ngx book is available. Checkpoint is popular, reputable, and IMO gets the job done very well. All that considered the lack of a market for this new NGX is a surprise to me.

One other thing that surprises me also is checkpoint is doing away with ccsa 156-215 and ccse 156-315 and replacing them with 156.215.1 and 156-315.1 respectively. Most of the objectives are the same and I see they have only added about 2 new ones for each. But the fact that there was not much of a market to begin with and I know very few people that have the ccsa or ccse for the ngx compared to other popular certs (ccna for example) it seems odd that they already are revising the exams.

jsond

mikej412 wrote:

Congratulations!

Yeah! And when you get into the CCSP exams, could you do a "compare and contrast" to that new ASA/PIX exam?

Thank you!

Not a problem there. I am going to go for the pix firewall specialist 1st by passing the snpa and the snd. After that I will try for the remainder of the exams to get the ccsp. Been searching for a pix 501 on ebay but was hoping to get one shipped for 250 or less. Most have been selling for just over that, or much more if its a 50 user license but I only need a 10 user license. In the mean time I have the syngress pix book and the cisco press snpa book. So I plan on hanging around the ccsp forum a bit.

Anyhoo time to light that cigar, relax tonite and then start climbing another mountain tomorrow.

Webmaster

Thanks for the extensive feedback!