Passed today, here's some in detail pointers for all a ya's

juvenileslilbrotha

1. First thing, ignore anyone who tells you they just took this exam on a whim or they studied for it for three days and passed. They likely do this stuff for a living. If you do not study for this exam and give it the respect it deserves you will wind up failing it by 10 or 15 points and at 275.00 a pop, that's gonna hurt.

2. I used the Glen Clarke book to study for the test and that was probably a mistake. From what I am gathering the Darrill Gibson book is probably what you should be using. The Glen Clarke book does a very good job at introducing you to concepts, however, it fails miserably in giving you the detail of understanding the exam requires. I have been doing this for over ten years so I got by using the Clarke book but if I didn't have the practical knowledge to back it up, I would have failed.

3. The level of ambiguity in the question wording is what makes this exam a problem. I would have to say this exam rivals the CCNA in its ambiguous terminology. Fifty percent of the questions can either be A, C, D or B. You will need to know the concepts behind the question. You will need to know even the wrong answers so that you can use the process of elimination narrow it down between either A or D.

4. From everything I have read and from my personal experience, about midway through this exam you will feel like you are failing it or that you have already failed it. Push this feeling out of your mind you are likely right in it. You need to not give up and push forward attacking every question as if it is your saving grace. It will pay off in the end despite your feeling of despair.

5. here are the things you need to know in order of importance... You need to know EVERYTHING about private and public keys from a digital certificate standpoint to a web server to a PKI Asymmetric standpoint. It's akin to knowing subnetting on the CCNA exam. You then need to know what algorithms and or hashes are asymmetric vs symmetric. You need to then know the difference between NIPs, NIDs Firewalls, HIPs and HIDs. You will then need to know how to distinguish between XXS, SQL injection attacks, Buffer attacks etc. Then there's the difference between what's a baseline and what's a vulnerability scan vs a virus vs a worm vs a logic bomb.

At the end of the test it will give you an opportunity to go back and review questions, please use this time wisely. Remember to flag questions that you are uncertain about so that it will high light which ones you need to go back to for further investigation.

I hope this info helps. What I was trying to do was not just let you guys know "I Passed" the test but to also give you some first hand knowledge as to what you can expect so that you can pass the test as well.

We nerds must stick together, good luck, "The IT Professional's Industry Almanac"

NotHackingYou

I had the same feeling of having failed the exam halfway through too!