GCIH Exam Fail :( - Assistance/Help/Review of my material?

Greetings Community,
I hope everyone is staying safe during these unprecedented times we are experiencing!
I am reaching out to the community for some assistance, help, and/or review of my GCIH material to see what I am doing wrong and where to improve (within the rules and regulations of GIAC/SANS). I recently took my GCIH test and failed. To be honest, I am super bummed and not sure what to do or how to improve. I thought my index was very thorough (over 200 pages bound and tabbed). After each practice exam I made changes to information I missed or reword. After the my second practice test, I overhauled the index to get as thorough as I could. This sucks, because I now have to pay $800 out of pocket to retest (which since I failed, the next test will be based on new material changes) and it doesn't even come with another practice exam! After paying $7K for a class, you would think they might give you a break on the exam price, maybe $200! I digress and no, I am not looking for or want a pity party (I guess I needed to vent some)!
To those that have recently taken the training and passed the exam between July 2019 and June 2020, would you mind lending out a hand to help? Maybe review my index to give me some feedback on where I could improve (i.e. formatting, structure, missing info, etc) and possibly share your index so I could compare with mine?
Is it possible that someone in the community has an extra GCIH practice test that they don't need and would be willing to give it away? I will even give you a donation for coffee or other activities, as long as it is not against the rules and regulations of GIAC/SANS!
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read my post!
Chap
I hope everyone is staying safe during these unprecedented times we are experiencing!
I am reaching out to the community for some assistance, help, and/or review of my GCIH material to see what I am doing wrong and where to improve (within the rules and regulations of GIAC/SANS). I recently took my GCIH test and failed. To be honest, I am super bummed and not sure what to do or how to improve. I thought my index was very thorough (over 200 pages bound and tabbed). After each practice exam I made changes to information I missed or reword. After the my second practice test, I overhauled the index to get as thorough as I could. This sucks, because I now have to pay $800 out of pocket to retest (which since I failed, the next test will be based on new material changes) and it doesn't even come with another practice exam! After paying $7K for a class, you would think they might give you a break on the exam price, maybe $200! I digress and no, I am not looking for or want a pity party (I guess I needed to vent some)!
To those that have recently taken the training and passed the exam between July 2019 and June 2020, would you mind lending out a hand to help? Maybe review my index to give me some feedback on where I could improve (i.e. formatting, structure, missing info, etc) and possibly share your index so I could compare with mine?
Is it possible that someone in the community has an extra GCIH practice test that they don't need and would be willing to give it away? I will even give you a donation for coffee or other activities, as long as it is not against the rules and regulations of GIAC/SANS!
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read my post!
Chap
Comments
I am not GCIH... but I am preparing for GPEN (exam in 2 weeks) so most subject are similar. How well were you doing at your practice test? What was your weaks subjects? Did you rely mostly on your index? Were you rushed because you were too much using your index... 200 page.. it is a very big index.
I am preparing to be able to answer everything from memory as if it wasnt an open book exam. I don't expect to use my books or index more than a few time for some quick fact check). It is more time-consuming but it will last longer.
You talked exclusively about your index as if it were your golden ticket to passing the GCIH. That mentality is the problem. If you have to look up more than 20% of the questions then you don't know the material well enough and aren't ready for the exam. At 200 pages you just made another book for yourself instead of a quick reference guide. Cap your index to 20 pages at most.
Now, start over by reading the books start to finish and do the labs as you encounter them. You need to completely understand every section and lab before moving on. Do that twice. You need to spend more time focusing on the material and time less on your index. That would be my approach to GIAC exams which I'm only 8-0 on passing.
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After the first practice test I completely revamped my index to add what I missed from the first practice test and different variations of the words to find them multiple ways. Example would be: Netcat Port Scanning and Port Scanning Netcat. My thought was that I would hopefully find it either under the "P" or "N".
My indexes are bound and tabbed A-Z. One index is all five books combined and alphabetized. The second index all the tools alphabetized. The third index is Windows Commands and Linux Commands.
My weakest subjects are Network Attacks, Overflow Attacks, Scanning: Discovery and Mapping, Scanning: Techniques and Defense, Session Hijacking and Cache Poisoning, and Techniques for maintaining access.
Correct, that is how the information about creating the index was told to me. This is my first SANS exam and others who have taken them expressed the importance of the index and that if you don't have a good one you will not pass. I was freaked out by that! So, I made a super thorough index as I could and I even still had trouble finding information or just didn't index it!
I think it is too late to redo my index again. With all the months I spent building it, I don't even know where to begin on what to take away.
I am currently in the process of reading the books again from start to finish, making notes of stuff I saw on the exam, and redoing the labs. Prior to taking the exam, I have watched the ondemand videos about 3-4 times, listen to the mp3 audio numerous times and did the labs about 3 times.
The index sharing discussion comes up in the SANS Advisory Board every now and then. Almost everyone agrees that sharing indexes does NOT violate anything or is considered cheating. That is assuming it's a real index and not full copies of SANS course content. Some of us argue that sharing indexes does not have much value because building the index is part of the learning experience. If I share my index and someone fails, they could easily blame me. Heck no!
Good to know that the discussion on index sharing does come up on the SANS Advisory board and does not violate any policies. Here is a screenshot of my indexs.
https:// imgur.com/a/MMP382A
What version of the course do you have? If we have the same version, I wouldn't mind being your study partner! I am just about to finish my second pass of the books.
I honestly don't know - I was going off what I was told by other who have taken SANS exams. They told me to index every page title as the subject/term and different ways, ie.e "Ping Network Stuff" and "Network Stuff Ping".
How do I find out what version of the course books I have? I don't see it under the copyright and terms page.
Yes, it is 200 plus pages at font size 9.5 and scaled down to 79%. If I was at font size 10-11 and NOT scaled down, I bet it would be 350ish pages.
That is good to know the SANS Advisory Board does not consider sharing indexes a violation
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One very helpful thing was carefully reviewing each question of the practice exam, several days later, over and over until I could "take" it again and get 100%. I mean the practice exam is given in a web browser after all.
*Probably couldn't do that on something more intense, like the 503, from what I've heard, but very doable on the 504.
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I too have a habit of making too many notes and I have always done this. But when I did GCCC - I simply created an index of the index just to point me in the right direction.
What you can do is perhaps go over the material and make a short index of the index you have - what I mean is perhaps a few pages just to highlight key aspects so you can be pointed to the right direction when needed.
Best of luck.