1.  It's certainly not bad -- at a minimum, it will give you an idea of the modules that are covered on the test and the depth to which they are tested.

2.  Honestly, I think you'd get more out of independent research on topics that you're not familiar with.   Use the book that you have to identify areas that you're not entirely comfortable and then find good references on those areas.

3.  The exam is (similar to many others) a random selection of 150 questions from an increasingly large pool of available questions.   This means you may get an easier draw or you may get a brutal draw.   Further compounding things is that the answers are handled the same way:  randomly drawn from a pool of available answers.   This was originally done to randomize the order of the answers on your question (so you couldn't just memorize "B" for the answer).   Over time, as the pool of available answers on any given question grew, you started to run into the situation where the "correct" answer may not be randomly selected -- i.e. you may not be able to get the question right.

The CEH is a good test in that it tests for technical knowledge that is required to get started hacking/pen-testing.   It does a good job of eliminating false-positives (you generally won't pass it unless you have at least some knowledge of the materials)....not so good at eliminating false negatives.   Like anything else, it simply means that you have the requisite knowledge to get started -- not that you're a hacker.  Like a college degree, it's a tool to open doors and create opportunities that may not otherwise be available to you.

4.  After you have the C|EH, you can test for the ECSA -- it's a cakewalk in comparison.

Seems like as good a place as any to throw out another ChicagoCon 2008f teaser...

Michael Gregg has been added to the slate of speakers during the Ethical Hacking Conference portion of our fall event.

w00t!!

Don

PS - Thanks Mike.