First practice exam GCIH

I took my first practice exam and got a 76% on it.

My index is just over 9 pages long and I might have used it for about half of the questions.

I know what I need to do in order to tweak it so that's good.

Questions:

Is the exam harder than the practice, in your opinion, or are they on par with keeping it the same? Format and all (not the questions themselves). I was able to use the process of elimination fairly effectively with this exam. I have never been one to do that in any exam or test, but I felt like it was naturally the thing to do, and it saved me a couple times. I'm horrible at taking exams but I feel like the answers jumped out at me.

What did you get on your practice exams before you felt comfortable with taking the actual exam?

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Comments

quogue66

The practice exams are usually the exact same level of difficulty. I think I scored a 73 on my first, 83 on the second and an 86 on the actual exam. In my experience the practice exams have always been a very accurate indicator of your knowledge with the material.

TechGromit

Generally it's a +/- 5% delta between the practice examine and the actual exam. Practice test 1 may probe your knowledge more on Cars, Practice test 2 may concentrate more on Trucks, and the actual exam may more about Buses, but if you know the material, generally it's a 5% delta between them. There are exceptions of course, you could panic freeze up and totally bomb it, regardless of how good your practice exams were. So far my certification scores were:

GSEC 81% 81% 87%
GCIH 76% 80% 78%
GREM 60% 69.3% 73.3%

Jasiono

Oh perfect, thank you!

Quogue66 - Very nice, I was sort of hoping that it would mimic, at least the style, of the actual exam.

TechGromit - Thank you for those numbers, I appreciate it!

My coworker just passed the exam last week. Very exciting! I got pretty nervous, and still am, because he compared it to the CISSP and said it was on par (if not more) tougher.

His index was 60 pages long as well so I was worried about mine not being sufficient (I realize everyone's is completely different)

E Double U

Jasiono wrote: »

What did you get on your practice exams before you felt comfortable with taking the actual exam?

I just schedule my exam right before the four month deadline regardless of comfort. I usually fail my practice exams because I try to take them at work so I run out of time lol.

Passed GCIA with a 72 and GCIH with a 76.

Jasiono

E Double U wrote: »

I just schedule my exam right before the four month deadline regardless of comfort. I usually fail my practice exams because I try to take them at work so I run out of time lol.

Passed GCIA with a 72 and GCIH with a 76.

You've taken the CISSP it seems.
WOuld you say that those two exams are on par? CISSP and GCIH?

E Double U

Jasiono wrote: »

WOuld you say that those two exams are on par? CISSP and GCIH?

Completely different animals. Both have a level of difficulty obviously, but one is very technical and the other is not. I was very hands on with technical stuff at the time of passing both exams (about five months apart) and GCIH only took one try while CISSP was three attempts. GCIH takes a deep dive into specific technical topics while CISSP scratches the surface of a broader range of topics at a higher level.

TechGromit

Jasiono wrote: »

Would you say that those two exams are on par? CISSP and GCIH?

The problem with most exams is you really have no idea how the test will be like until you take one. With a GIAC exams, the practice tests are exactly like the real exam, of course the questions are different, but the format is the same. I read reports were people paid hundreds of dollars for practice exams for the CISSP, only to find the exam was completely different than the practice exam they wasted there money on. The same is true for other exams, since the practice exams are not created by the same organization that created the exam, they could be similar or way off when compared to the actual exam.

admford

Was procrastinating a bit, so I did my practice exam on a Sunday evening & got 86%. Updated my index, and the next day I scored 90% on my exam.

Jasiono

Very awesome. Thank you everyone for your input! I really appreciate it.
I pushed my exam out one more month because I really need to brush up on DNS related attacks and information since it seems to be the hardest hitting subject against me. Recreating my index right now by quickly scanning the books. Once that is done I plan on reading the books once more, without watching the videos, and taking the second practice exam. Then I plan on watching all the training material until official test time. I might even bump the test to take it earlier if I feel I am ready for it and ready to get it done with and stop stressing over it

I noticed on the practice exam that I was REALLY able to effectively use the process of elimination for the questions I had some trouble with. This is good because I'm God awful at taking exams, let alone using that technique for troubled questions.

spippari

Try to squeeze your index not more than 10 pages max, have all attacks on one page, all tools on another.. something like this. I just passed the exam last week.

TechGromit

spippari wrote: »

Try to squeeze your index not more than 10 pages max, have all attacks on one page, all tools on another.. something like this. I just passed the exam last week.

Hey what ever works for you, My List of programs index, what they did and grouped by type of program was 12 pages long by version 6 and my main index was 35 pages long by version 13. There were 240 different software listed on my program index alone. A 10 pages index? BAH!

Jasiono

I'm planning on branching out all my commands and command flags into a separate index since it's getting fairly large now. It's currently 17 pages and I still have to go through books 4 and 5 before my second practice exam.

I scheduled the exam for the 28th of this month as well

IaHawk

CISSP was much harder in my opinion. The fact you can use books and an index for GIAC exams, makes a 10-20% difference in my opinion. Practice exams are pretty much identical.

Regarding an index, if you are not sure whether or not to put a term/item in there, add it!

j1mgg

I am sitting mine this weekend and done my first mock yesterday, got 90%. My index was 4 pages with double columns in word, and had the book tabbed.
I am also going through books again putting more into my index, as their was some stuff missing I found when doing the mock, but want to keep it under 8 pages.

IaHawk

For indexing, I followed this format: SANS Index How To Guide with Pictures | Digital Forensics Tips

Highly recommend it.

Jasiono

That's the exact format I have been using and it's so nice. I found myself not even opening the book several times due to the comments section

j1mgg - Nice on the first practice exam!