So far I have taken two GIAC exams.  On both exams I scored within 2%-5% of what I had previously scored on the practice exams.  The practice exams cover all of the same material as the real exams and they have a similar structure.  I never ran into any questions that were EXACTLY the same from the practice tests but quite a few looked very familiar.  I thought the practice tests were well worth the money.  Of course getting the two freebies with a challenge is just great!  I hope that answers your questions and good luck!

I tend to agree with BillV, I have found real exams a bit tougher than the practice test. But I have never encountered any question which was exactly similar to the in both exams.

VJ

I haven't taken enough GIAC exams to give you a good answer on that (I've only done 1 - and only did 1 practice). In my experience, I would guess that if you scored above a 85-90% in the practice exams, you'll probably pass the actual test. Though I'm sure there are probably people out there that did just that and did not pass the real test.

What I can tell you is that I had plenty of time. I think I finished my exam in maybe 2-2.5 hours. The only thing I didn't do on this test compared to others I've taken is go back through all the questions again.

The cool thing about GIAC exams (I've yet to see others that do this), is that they grade you as you go and it's visible. So there's a sidebar that shows how many you have right and how many you have wrong. As long as you know that you need x of y questions correct to pass, you'll know when you've passed or the threshold of questions you can get wrong before failing.

Also, please remember that GIAC exams are open book and you can carry all yr course material and any written notes with you. But, beware dont bank on the open book part, you should be able to get at aleast 50% of the questions without looking in the book or you will run out of time.

As far as GPEN goes it a bit more challenging than others. All the best !!

VJ

I think that funkybunch78 is spot on.  When I took my last test, I created my indexes to prepare for the sample test, and preparing the indexes made me review everything.  I used the practice tests to figure out where my weak areas were, and most importantly, where my indexes were weak.  Going back through all of the areas where my index were weak made me review the information a second time, which I think left me very prepared for the test itself.  Between the review and the indexes, I finished in about an hour and 15 mins and I found that the areas that I didn't have to go back to the book very frequently at all because the creation of the indexes had kept so much stuff fresh.