Passed with a score of 922!
I did perfect in 5 domains listed in the blueprint. My two weak areas are:
- Implement AAA on Cisco routers using local router database and external ACS 67%
- Mitigate common Layer 2 attacks 50%
I figured maybe I got 2 out of 4 questions wrong in the Layer 2 area, but I don't care as long as I passed.
I started studying it back in mid-May, reading the Paquet book from cover-to-cover, but I did 90% of the labs by following the examples as I read along. After finishing reading for maybe bout three weeks, I purchased the Boson ExSim Exam and practiced all 191 questions in study mode. I got 60% the first time, but I didn't go back to it immediately since we are not suppose to memorize and pass the practice exam, but rather understand the topics and know our weak areas.
So I went back to the book and practiced my weakest area with most answers incorrects up to my least weakest area. I manually jotted down notes on my notepad (for better memory retention) and did some serious labbing for every area until I got the concept locked down. I skipped some areas either because it's either I don't have enough time, enough resources to lab, or the domain is insignificant (which can be negligible). After creating pages of note and spending several hours on lab practice, I went back to the ExSim exam, and passed with 88%. The review took me about three weeks, but I had to wait to book the exam due to WGU.
In my honest opinion, I would say the exam should be very easy if you are well-prepared for it. By the way, I should point out that there were some blur pictures in the exam question, so for those of you that are not near-sighted may suffer a little bit. Here are the following resources I used:
- Authorized Self-Study Guide: Implementing Cisco IOS Network Security (IINS) by Catherine Paquet
- Ubuntu (host OS) with GNS3 and VirtualBox installed (Windows XP as Guest OS)
- Boson ExSim Exam Environment (I paid $75 for it)
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Information on SDM and Java configuration I posted here a while ago
