Passed GIAC G2700 Last Weekend

tpatt100tpatt100 Member Posts: 2,991 ■■■■■■■■■□
I kept procrastinating retaking this exam for WGU because I failed it before. I really do not like the GIAC exams being part of WGU's degree program. Primary reason is you don't get the official course material and rely on what WGU provides.

WHICH is "enough" to pass the exam but the problem is there were several questions that are not anywhere in the material recommended. I have heard that if you take a GIAC exam and go through the course you pretty much have the material needed to look up stuff if needed. I knew going in not to rely on looking stuff up but a few questions I was like "wth?? what is that doing in here?"

I assume WGU thinks if you have 90 percent of the material available you can give a few away if none of your study material covers it. I just think if I am challenging an exam I go in knowing that I might have to just give it my best shot for a few questions because it is worth saving the cost of going to the official course through SANS.

Anyways my best tip? Mark questions your lost on and move on. I had to force myself once to do it and looking back I should have done it more because further in I ran into questions that jogged my memory for questions I was confused about.

I ended up only having 2:40 seconds left when I completed the exam....

When you hit five minutes left the clock starts FLASHING....

4:59
4:58
4:57
4:56

I was like "really?" and I was scrambling for the last 7 questions. I spent way too much time on a few questions that stumped me which was my fault

Anyways just have my Capstone and CCENT and I am done with the Masters program.

Comments

  • onesaintonesaint Member Posts: 801
    Congrats! Godspeed on the rest.
    Work in progress: picking up Postgres, elastisearch, redis, Cloudera, & AWS.
    Next up: eventually the RHCE and to start blogging again.

    Control Protocol; my blog of exam notes and IT randomness
  • JDMurrayJDMurray Admin Posts: 13,023 Admin
    Congratz on your pass! icon_cheers.gif


    I've read that it's possible to only mark a few of the items on a GIAC exam to do later.

    And it may also be that GIAC puts research questions on their exams, which don't count towards the final score. This would explain the occasional, out-of-left-field exam item.
  • tpatt100tpatt100 Member Posts: 2,991 ■■■■■■■■■□
    Ok that makes sense I forgot about that, probably was in the intro screen but I was already sweating before I started it.
  • veritas_libertasveritas_libertas Member Posts: 5,746 ■■■■■■■■■■
    tpatt100 wrote: »
    Ok that makes sense I forgot about that, probably was in the intro screen but I was already sweating before I started it.

    Congratz!

    What did you think of the G2700? Was it interesting material to study, or a snorefest? :)
  • tpatt100tpatt100 Member Posts: 2,991 ■■■■■■■■■□
    I used the ISO 27000 series for my current project at work so I knew it like the back of my hand. My big issue was some of the questions I could not figure out what "perspective" the question was being asked from. Stuff like "what is the most important reason for blah blah" and it was not a question worded: "based on this and this, what is the most important reason to do such and such". I was like I said before, a question that seemed right out of the official course material from SANS or something.

    I thought most of it was "easy" if it was a point blank question but many were so "matter of perspective" that I was getting a little ticked off about it.
  • veritas_libertasveritas_libertas Member Posts: 5,746 ■■■■■■■■■■
    It's always nice when the material is related to something you do.
  • Chris:/*Chris:/* Member Posts: 658 ■■■■■■■■□□
    Congrats, I thought the test was tough as well with just the WGU material. After taking that course and completing the test with non-SANS information I determined that it would be unlikely I attempt another GIAC test without the associated SANS class.

    Besides I want to make sure I am getting all that great information.
    Degrees:
    M.S. Information Security and Assurance
    B.S. Computer Science - Summa Cum Laude
    A.A.S. Electronic Systems Technology
  • tpatt100tpatt100 Member Posts: 2,991 ■■■■■■■■■□
    Already got the cert in the mail that was fast. The GIAC certs are very nice framed and professional looking.
  • ingenious2ingenious2 Registered Users Posts: 1 ■□□□□□□□□□
    Hi Folks,

    I have failed this exam 4 times and I have been really trying hard to pass this exam. but i get weird question every time and they are not even close to the standards. some are very confusing for example some are

    What is the best place to start your security awareness training
    - New Hire
    - Human Resource Department
    - IT Department
    - Upper Management

    I choose IT department as it starts with IT people but at the same time confused because HR also is a good place to start awareness as they have more weight in spelling the policies.Same quesition was repeated with different answer in every exam but hr and it remains there.

    Next question was

    What is the use having contact with your ISP.
    I did some research online but i couldnt get a valid answer so i choose that we have benefits of knowing the threats before it reaches to our network and considerations and discussion of current threats.

    I really need help from you guys. I have gone through the standards and the IT governance book. Do i really need to go through WGU list of resources because it has too much information and that is almost pointless.

    I had issue with the following domains.

    Security policy
    Access Control
    HR Awareness
    ISO 27001 Background

    Rest were almost either 5 stars or 3 stars but i get 68% everytime.

    Can you please tell if learning key provides more information in depth. I have gone through Ucertify and have made notes and i think its useless.
  • shellee1983shellee1983 Member Posts: 71 ■■□□□□□□□□
    ingenious2 wrote: »
    Hi Folks,

    I have failed this exam 4 times and I have been really trying hard to pass this exam. but i get weird question every time and they are not even close to the standards. some are very confusing for example some are

    What is the best place to start your security awareness training
    - New Hire
    - Human Resource Department
    - IT Department
    - Upper Management

    I choose IT department as it starts with IT people but at the same time confused because HR also is a good place to start awareness as they have more weight in spelling the policies.Same quesition was repeated with different answer in every exam but hr and it remains there.

    Next question was

    What is the use having contact with your ISP.
    I did some research online but i couldnt get a valid answer so i choose that we have benefits of knowing the threats before it reaches to our network and considerations and discussion of current threats.

    I really need help from you guys. I have gone through the standards and the IT governance book. Do i really need to go through WGU list of resources because it has too much information and that is almost pointless.

    I had issue with the following domains.

    Security policy
    Access Control
    HR Awareness
    ISO 27001 Background

    Rest were almost either 5 stars or 3 stars but i get 68% everytime.

    Can you please tell if learning key provides more information in depth. I have gone through Ucertify and have made notes and i think its useless.

    I have yet to study for this, however I would choose new hires considering it is a well known fact that untrained/ignorant people are an organizations security risk. Low tech hacking requires zero knowledge of the system...just requires that you know how to get people to talk without arousing suspicion.
  • Psyco32Psyco32 Member Posts: 104 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Upper Management. Without their approval you cannot implement the Security Awareness training.
    2014 GOALS
    > GMOB [MAR_2014] OSCP [MAY_2014] GREM [OCT_2014]
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