I took my Firewall exam today and passed with an 819. Not great, but it's a pass. I'll live.
I, apparently, studied a lot of the wrong material, so I was lucky to get that score.
On one hand, I studied a huge chart that I had on my wall in my office, memorized almost 100 different specifics, and didn't get a single question on the whole chart. On the other hand, I got quite a few questions on a particular feature that wasn't covered in the 642-617 OCG, the 642-618 OCG, the Boson practice questions, the Cisco CCNP Firewall Video Mentor (from Pearson Live Learning), or the CBT Nuggets videos for either the 617 or 618. I just searched my Kindle copy of the 618 OCG for the name of this feature, and it was mentioned in the book exactly once, and that was just to mention that it exists. No details at all.
I pretty much mentioned all of my study materials in the last paragraph. The other thing I use is AnkiWeb/AnkiDroid. It allows you to create flashcards on a PC and then review/study them from your phone (or PC). I really use that a lot for memorizing facts and even for commands.
I'm not sure what is next. I did this one to renew everything and to take a step towards CCNP Security, but I'm not sure what I'll do now that they've changed everything about CCNP Security. There aren't any study materials available for the new exams as far as I know. My company wants us all to get ITIL Foundations, so I may tackle that while I wait for CCNP Security materials to catch up with the exams.
Thanks to everyone who posts on here. I got a lot of studying tips from these forums.
