Failed CCSA 156-215.1 exam

[Davinci1969]

Hi all,

I thought I would give you a quick update on the CCSA 156.215.1 exam.

Right from the outset I was possibly at a disadvantage as I attended the course in November last year and therefore had the 'DOC-VPN-01-S-NGX' courseware (the 'DOC-VPN-01-S-NGX-1' courseware was released in January 2006 apparently).

I chose to sit the exam anyway and failed with a score of 65%. Based on 70% being the pass mark and there being 70 valid questions in the exam this would mean I failed by 3 questions!! (&#%!!)

Any, I thought I would give a brief indication of how I found the exam.

The first thing to realise is that a number of these questions are based on scenarios. One from memory, as an example, was around increasing the performance of the Security Gateway. They generally started with something like:

"John is a Security Administrator for his company. He has been tasked with increasing the performance of the existing gateway meeting the following requirments:"

- Required: Must not purchase new equipment
- Required: Must not decrease the level of current security

- Prefered: Try to reduce the level of logging from the Security Gateway
- Prefered: blah blah
- Prefered: blah blah

"Johns recommended solution is:"

Blah Blah


Johns solution:

A. Covers the Required and Prefered conditions
B. Covers the Required conditions and 1 of the Prefered conditions
C: Covers the Required conditions and 2 of the Prefered conditions
D: Does not meet the Required or Prefered conditions


There are approx. 5 questions of a similiar nature covering things from NATing to Disaster Recovery.

Understand PLEASE that you will not pass these questions succesfully merely by rote repetition of Exam Crams, etc!

Check Point has made a good effort to ensure that the questions you answer are not based only on knowing an answer, but also why that answer applies in a given situation. This is not something you will learn by simply rote memorising, rather it requires that you choose a BEST answer based on different criteria.

There are a few simplier questions, for example, is the rule order in the diagram correct? and where do you go to gain information about CPU load, memory load, etc.

Overall, the focus I felt was on 3 main areas:

NATing - approx. 20-25%
SmartDefense - approx. 20-25% (scenario based mostly)
Backup/Recovery - approx. 20% (alot of CLI commands)

The rest was a mix of LDAP and Remote Access options.

A question about 'Collisions' in SmartView Monitor was mentioned earlier in these forums and I only received the one question on it.

I hope this helps. I don't want to sound too negative here but just understand that I do not believe TestKing or similiar along with rote learning will do these days (although they will certainly help), you need to actively think about when features such as Web Intelligence should be used and why.

Good luck
Davinci1969

[karia]

hi
it's very disappointing u came very near to success,better luck next time.


Everyone was telling that checkpoint as changed questions pattern ,
it is asking now more lengthy or test (10- 12)question ,
also any question from the testking dumps (156-215) appearing in the exam ,
if we read earlier version of testking ,it is going to help or not &
any question on authentication.


I am taking exam these month end & every one is telling from july 1st onwards checkpoint as changed the question asking pattern.so it is making me tense .
pl clarify friend.


thanking u in advance

[Davinci1969]

Hi Karia,

thanks for your kind comment. :-)

I have not sat the previous test so I am not sure how they differ. However, alot of the exam questions are very long (they take up the whole screen!).

For this reason please keep your eye on the time in this exam. You can use the 'Review' checkbox to go back to earlier questions so my advise is to get through the easier questions first and then go back and review the earlier questions. This will help you by at least answering all the questions.

I have not used the TestKing pdf's so I do not know if they do cover the material or not but I will be using them for my study before I resit the exam so I will update once I buy the pdf's.

There are a few questions on authentication so it would pay to cover off this area (particularly Client Authentication options).

I would say that some of the main areas to spend some time on are:

- CLI commands for backing up and restoring
- NATing, cover as much as possible in this area
- Setting up secure communications between SmartCenter Server and Security Gateways when adding additional Gateways
- Understand the difference between Policy Packages and Database Revisions

Feel free to ask any other questions you may have and I will do my best to answer them.

Good luck with your exam Karia!

Kind Regards
Davinci1969

[karia]

hi
don't go for buying testking dumps ,pl download with these link

hxxp://rapidshare.de/files/21075940/tk156-215.pdf.html


thank u very much friend for ur valuable replay

with regards
karia

[Davinci1969]

Hi Karia,

thanks for that. I bought the Prometricvue version of TestKings paper the other day.

I can say that I found that approximately 24 questions out of the 65 were almost exactly the same work for word.

However, I cannot say for certain that some of the others are word for word. They do however, cover the content that you will find in the exam very well. But please, DO NOT use them as your only study guide as this is not enough.

Kind Regards
Davinci1969

[ma77smith]

Cheers Davinci,

I wonder why testking haven't got more percentage of the questions covered ? When I did my MCSE I used braindumps for my 70-291 exam and I reckon 90% of the questions I had seen.

I know you get 65 Qs in the exam, but what is the size of the question pool they take them from. I know with MS exams theres normally about 400 possible questions from which 40 - 50 are selected.

Cheers

[bronzelee]

Davinci1969,

Sorry to hear of your misfortune with the ccsa ngx exam, however, better luck next time. I trust that you are using the latest material for your reset exam. Anyway, could you say for certain if the Prometricvue Tesking that you bought and if the one offer in this tread by Karia are the same. If not could you post it up or send it to leon.vanheflin@gmail.com. They may be some slite variation in Prometricvue version but not sure!!

Regards,
Bronzelee

[tdr125]

the new version with 71 questions is out.
from prometricvue you can download the updates for 60 days or download it 50 times. please , post the updated version!!

[Davinci1969]

Originally Posted by ma77smith

Cheers Davinci,

I wonder why testking haven't got more percentage of the questions covered ? When I did my MCSE I used braindumps for my 70-291 exam and I reckon 90% of the questions I had seen.

I know you get 65 Qs in the exam, but what is the size of the question pool they take them from. I know with MS exams theres normally about 400 possible questions from which 40 - 50 are selected.

Cheers

I'm not sure why they haven't covered more. It was the first time I have brought a TestKing as I haven't had to study for an exam for some time.

There is actually 73 questions in the exam, 3 of which are used for evaluation purposes, but they do not indicate which ones these are. As for the pool size, I don't know what sort of test philosophy they use, otherwise braindumps would be a little less helpful. :-)

[Davinci1969]

Hi everyone,

To those of you asking for the latest version to be posted, I'm sorry, but I have a real problem with paying for something and then just giving it away to people. At US$29.95, and for the amount the PDF can help you, I would encourage you to buy it for yourself and get the 45 days of free updates.

I will tell you this though. The current version on offer from Prometricvue is version 7 released 28th July. This has added 5 questions to take it to a total of 71.

However, all the questions added have obviously been hastely typed with mis-spellings and in one case a diagram missing and none of them have the answer to them yet! Instead the answer includes the phrase: Pending, ., Send your segguestion to ...@testking.com

If you have the older version 6 at this stage then that is still going to be the most helpful.

I really urge you to not just use this though. You will NOT pass just by cramming the answers from the TestKing. With only approx. 24 questions in TestKing being on the money (almost word for word), it will not be enough to pass the exam. Remember, the passmark is 70%. With 24 questions covered by TestKing you still need to answer 24 questions right just to hit 70%.

Please, spend the time understanding Disaster Recovery, SmartDefense, NATing and LDAP integration. These are your key areas. With Disaster Recovery, you really want to understand how to backup and restore from the command-line, how you restore components of a backup and what frequency you should be backing up the various components of NGX.

For NATing you need to understand whether or not you should be using Static or Dynamic (Hide) NAT and in what situation. You may also get a question, from memory, on troubleshooting a manual NAT implementation, so brush up on manual NAT implementation.

LDAP has some trouble-shooting questions and what order things should be set up in.

Good luck with the exam everyone.

Kind Regards
Davinci1969

[ma77smith]

Well, I'm going to focus particularly on the areas mentioned by people in here who have already taken it (including yourself), everyone seems to be mentioning the same topics.

I contacted certways and they said it will be updated in the next few days, I will send you the updated one. I will NOT send it to the muppets who come on here just asking for it with no other input.

[Davinci1969]

Hi Matt,

I replied to you in the other forum but if since you've already mentioned you have bought the exam and are just looking for the update, give me your address and I will put the update through to you now.

Kind Regards
Davinci1969

[rajesh_ibm]

Originally Posted by karia

hi
don't go for buying testking dumps ,pl download with these link

hxxp://rapidshare.de/files/21075940/tk156-215.pdf.html


thank u very much friend for ur valuable replay

with regards
karia

hi, Ihave paid by paypall to download but not able to download the dumps. when i add this link for download it says 0 MB. that is why getting error message.pls send it to my email if possible(rajesh_ibm@rediffmail.com). hv to give exam quickly.

[gavvys]

Hey dont loose the heart better luck next time........

Keep trying......but make sure give a better try u will succeed.