GCIH Passed

donald7862003

I passed the GCIH yesterday with an 82. It was a good challenge and I am glad its over.

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ChooseLife

This must be the most concise report on success

Congrats!

docrice

Good job. How many questions were on the exam and how long did it take you? I'm wondering if the GCIH exam is the newer half-length format (with the supposedly more cognitive questions) or if it's the 150-question version.

musdev

Congrats bro

I know it feels good. Today I schedule my test for the middle of next month. I just received an email from SANS saying the alumni price for the test went up. SANS is so damn expensive its ridiculous. I paid 4,000 for the self study(2012) and was told via email that the course material was updated and there could be things on the test that 2012 books dont cover. Do you think Im screwed? Maybe they should have a cut off time for selling material if its renewed the following year. It just took my ass a minute because I wanted to understand the material instead of indexing and then just taking it.

docrice

Did you sign-up for the exam at the same time you purchased the courseware? If so, I believe they're supposed to provide you an exam that reflects the version of the course that you purchased.

If you purchased an exam attempt afterwards (and after they revised the exam), then I'm not sure what the expectation is. You should email SANS to see if they can get you on the previous version of exam.

It's unfortunate that the alumni price went up. I think SANS prices have gone up across the board. It looks like the average cost for the 6-day long courses via SelfStudy range between $3,960 to 4,150 plus an extra $449 for the OnDemand add-on (and for live instruction at a SANS conference, $4,645 to $4,845). Wow, that's quite a jump. Seriously.

SANS usually offer discount specials for their OnDemand courses though, usually about 20 percent (or they offer a free Mac mini or something). But still...

AnthonyF

Docrice,

Since you have asked the question regarding number of questions and type a few times and I have not seen anybody answer you directly. I will try to fill in that gap.

I took the test last week. The test was 150 questions long and 9 of 10 were verbatim from the study book. Test time 130 minutes.

The questions were simple on average but some contained tricky wording. You know the ones that after you click submit you instantly know you chose the wrong answer.

Hope this helps.

martin_887

I took the exam this morning and failed. I challenged the exam so I had no course materials/books. I scored a 60% which is alright to me I guess. I felt as if the exams questions were worded extremely tricky and the questions were mainly focused on a specific few objectives.

If I were to attempt this certification again in the future, I won't do it without taking the course from SANS.

My exam was 4 hours long and 150 questions.

AnthonyF

Sorry to hear that. I had the benefit of the class and SANS books. I used the on-demand method of training delivery. I know that makes a huge difference.

docrice

SANS courses are sort of interesting because they're not usually about proprietary knowledge such as Cisco exams which are specific to Cisco equipment, commands, related concepts, etc.. Many SANS courses are about taking general field experiences and combining it with methodologies and tools that are freely available to everyone. You can Google up much of the same information, but SANS packages it all together into a coherent line of thought.

This is why for many GIAC exams it's really beneficial to go through the courseware and to have them as a direct reference when taking the test. It somewhat feels like cheating to me, but I think I understand the GIAC / SANS approach in that in the real-world professionals don't have all the minutia in their head and they'll have to search for the specifics to tailor a solution for a given issue. As long as they grasp the fundamental concepts, tool usage, application, and methodology, they can achieve the goal effectively.

There are some GIAC exams where courseware can probably be substituted for non-SANS materials. The GAWN exam can probably be passed by reading through Hacking Exposed: Wireless (2nd edition). The GCIH though has a lot of semi-unique knowledge in a sense that the exam relates terms specific to how they're presented in the courseware. If you read a book like Incident Response (Kevin Mandia) and compare it to SANS SEC-504 materials, the concepts are the same but the terms used are somewhat different.

Even if you failed the GCIH exam, the ultimate benefit is that you probably gained a lot of knowledge that you didn't have before. That's what counts the most on the job (although it hurts your resume and potential career maneuverability in the short term).

dover

I read the books which I borrowed from a colleague and listened to a taping of the class.

I'm definitely not trying to take anything away from your success - and I'm not the GIAC police - but you should remind your coworker it goes against his accepted agreement not to share his materials.

From GIAC Certifications FAQs
Can I share my course materials with a colleague?

You can tell others what you have learned, however, you can not share the course materials, in either hard copy or electronic format of PDFs and MP3 files. A policy agreement is confirmed and accepted in the registration process that your training is not to be shared. You can not train anyone in your organization using any of our material for any reason, even as a back-up position to you.

gcih

Hi Martin,

Had you tried 2 GCIH practice tests BEFORE at sans website before taking the true exam ? Like you, I'm going to challenge this exam in 2 weeks without taking SEC504 courses (too expensive)

SephStorm

docrice wrote: »

Did you sign-up for the exam at the same time you purchased the courseware? If so, I believe they're supposed to provide you an exam that reflects the version of the course that you purchased.

If you purchased an exam attempt afterwards (and after they revised the exam), then I'm not sure what the expectation is. You should email SANS to see if they can get you on the previous version of exam.

It's unfortunate that the alumni price went up. I think SANS prices have gone up across the board. It looks like the average cost for the 6-day long courses via SelfStudy range between $3,960 to 4,150 plus an extra $449 for the OnDemand add-on (and for live instruction at a SANS conference, $4,645 to $4,845). Wow, that's quite a jump. Seriously.

SANS usually offer discount specials for their OnDemand courses though, usually about 20 percent (or they offer a free Mac mini or something). But still...

I thought the distance version prices went up significantly. Highly unfortunate. Honestly I don't know if it truly is worth the cost, for a company or an individual. giving a guy a book and a month in front of XYZ console and he'd probably get a similar level of knowledge.

docrice

What SANS provides isn't just book material, but also a lot of field-experience anecdotes and bits of wisdom. In other words, it's a package wrapped up into a convenient format. I think it's a good practical balance of labs, lecture, and potential discussion if you're in a live class. Having an experienced human guide you through the material (both prerecorded and live) helps shape the perception better.

SANS' courses definitely helps those who are time-constrained due to work obligations or other commitments and need to squeeze a lot of knowledge into the shortest time frame possible through some hand-holding, but I also see that hand-holding as a constraint compared to Offensive Security courses which force you to creatively work your way through a problem while experiencing the pain of mini-defeats along the way. The latter happens often in real-life. Unfortunately, Offensive Security doesn't provide much in terms of defensive training subjects. If they did, I can only imagine how awesome it would be.