CISSP just took it.....Brutal. 2nd time and still head spinning

Got a 680, took it 3 1/2 years ago with a 691. Sheezus. I honestly don't think that by reading another single book (Read Offical ISC2 book, Shon Harris MP3's on the way to work, Eric Conrad, and various practice questions) that would've boosted my score. There was a ton of NEW information that I never seen in the study materials, or before. So lesson to be learned, if you take it and don't pass. Stay on it!!! The more you wait, the more questions will be added to the pool. I can't state questions (even though I didn't pass) because of the NDA. But I can tell you, it seemed like a good number of questions, were test questions. Not sure where I go from here, maybe take an less difficult one (exams are never easy IMHO) to boost my confidence level then maybe reschedule to meet this bear again. Been in IT for over 10 years, with diverse experience in different areas. I think the diversity makes it harder since I have to become a master, or at least semi in all areas (10 domains). We shall see!

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Comments

TheProfezzor

You said that you saw a lot of questions, that were fairly new to you. What were those about?. I am not asking you what the questions were, just what were they inclined towards and how do you think others should study, if you think Shon AIO, Eric Conrad didn't help you get acquainted with all the topics for the exam?

bobloblaw

You're too close. Dont' take another cert. Redouble your efforts, and take it again in a month to 6 weeks.

What quizzers are you using?

tufexams

@TheProfezzor, I think you really have to know every single domain. IMHO, there is no such thing as the most important domains. I had questions from all over the creation. I even had questions about mechanics of a smart card. Know idea about that except that it used for multi-factor authentication. So to sum up, study every single domain and know it IN and OUT!

@bobloblaw, Yes and Thank you. I can smell Victory but was a stone throw away, or a few. LOL. I have used ccure in the past, did thousands of questions but didn't seem to be grasping concepts using this methodoloy. Seems like was just remembering questions/answers but not concept. Switched over from this to just reading the Official ISC2 book, Eric Conrad, and a few other on-line resources (i.e. Sunflower PDF). Can you suggest a good quizzer? Because you seemed to have hit this cert (amongs others) out of the park. Thank you in advance @bobblaw and for the encouragement to succeed.

Humbe

Never give up.

You might tumble throughout the ordeal but you need to get up and continue to hammer it out. Once you get it out of the way the feeling will be awesome.

tufexams

@Humbe, Thank you for the encouragement. I plan to. Was getting tired of this B.S. LOL. But too much invested to give up. ISC2 you heard me.....give me an easier test. LOL. No such thing as easier, probably will nail me on the domains that I did well on, as I re-focus on the domains that I didn't do so well on.

dustervoice

hmm why does it seem that everyone that fails falls a few points short of passing!! is this thing a scam?? "spend another $600 and try again" after 3 tries and $1800 later we will certify you.

TheProfezzor

I felt the same. But by looking at the exam itself and the comments from people that have managed to pass, there are questions that are right out of the book and most of the candidates get those right. Some are survey questions. But there are a number of questions in there, that make the real difference. Get those right and you are done. These are the questions that differentiate between a real InfoSec professional with someone who just wants to get CISSP for the $$$.

bobloblaw

I never took the cccure quizzers, but I did buy the Transcender. I still swear by it. I took the practice quizzers and I would make flash cards of all the ones I didn't know. Once I felt comfortable I would do a full exam sim. I want to say the best I got was in the high 70's.

jvrlopez

What was your study regimen like? Which domains are your weakest?

I'd recommend using the Sybex 6ed CISSP book.

I don't buy into the whole "a lot more than 25 felt like test questions." I wasn't able to distinguish between which were and were not. They all seemed fair and straightforward to me. *shrug*

tufexams

bobloblaw: Thanks for the advice. I'll go ahead and try to add the Transcender to my list of arsenal. Interesting because I was getting like 80's on the exam. I honestly felt that I got a very weird, jacked up test. Yes, not impossible to pass obviously. But no matter how hard I looked at the question, there were 2 possible answers, and BOTH were correct. The difficult thing is seeing it from ISC2's view. This view.....only they know unfortunately. The mere fact that ISC2 (unlike SANS) doesn't provide you with the questions that you miss, you'll never know if you got them right or wrong and what to brush up on before the retake.

dustervoice: Yes. I do agree. I'm going to get to a breaking point here real soon and if I don't pass the next time around. I'm not going to donate another $600 to the ISC2 christmas fund, and the $85 annual dues can come from someone else. At that point, I'll pursue SANS, or a an ISACA cert that tests you on actual stuff that you study. Some of the questions like is the ocean blue? Answer: Yes it is. Well, that's incorrect Sir, the ocean is blue with shades of green so you got the answer wrong......total baloney!

tufexams

jvrlopez: Felt that I study pretty darn hard. Yes, I did read the Sybex 6ed CISSP book. So, the whole "a lot more tan 25 felt like test questions" is my personal analogy with regards to level of difficult. So you, jvrplopez could just be very smart in that they all look straight forward. So my apologies if you don't buy in to my personal analogies. My thoughts are my thoughts and everyone has a right to an opinion. I shared my experiences as a means of potentially getting motivation and support so that I can finally crack this nut. Don't wish to be insulted so please don't make comments in my post that will attempt to demotivate me or anyone else that is going after this cert. You already have it so please don't rain on anyone else's (including myself) parade.

dustervoice

Its strange how there are many conflicting comments on this site about this test and which resources were helpful and which didn't help at all. I really don't know what to think!. i guess i will just have to wait until i see the exam for myself.

tufexams

dustervoice: Regardless what anyone says. Everyone has their own personal view in regards to questions and level of difficulty. I may see a question that talks about cabling from a telecommunications perspective. Now if I worked for one of the larger cable companies and did this for a living.....lights out. Can answer the question with my eyes close. But when you have questions that are not what someone does everyday, makes it a little more difficult. Also, unlike how jvrlopez feels (because he's smart) I don't know anyone that has taken the test that says questions were very straightforward. Most if not all people that I spoke with say the questions were very tricky. I hope that when you decide to conquer the beast, that it will be different from my experience.

AverageJoe

OP, I'm with those who say get right back up on that horse. The 3.5 year break probably hurt you, but if you take a month or two to both cover ground you were light on and review the stuff you already did well on, you'll probably nail it. If you would have been way off your thought of trying an easier cert would be right on, but really, you were pretty close. Maybe you just got unlucky... stuff happens. Or maybe it was a good reminder that you don't remember everything you studied the last go round. Either way, you've shown you can get the majority correct, now you just need to inch it up a bit.

Good luck!
Joe

tufexams

Thank you @AverageJoe. Things like this motivates me as well as others on this forum. Any cert (thus my User ID for this site) takes dedication, time to study, and is not easy. People have strenghts and weaknesses. Yes, I agree that the 3.5 year break really hurt my ability to recapture all the stuff that I studied before. I think will just have to stay consistent, get back on the horse, and hit it in the butt (I meant nip it in the bud, LOL) while I'm conquer the beast.

AverageJoe

Dustervoice, you're right that you'll have to see for yourself. We all learn differently, have different experiences, and even make wild guesses differently. What works for one person may work well for some others, but not everyone. One thing a lot of folks learn from the certification process is how to study and prepare. Unfortunately, that's a skill that many people don't focus enough on in high school or college, but if you already know from those experiences how you (you!) learn best and how you (you!) best prepare for exams, then you're one up on a lot of folks.

Just my 2 cents.
Joe

AverageJoe

Sounds good, tufexams. At this point I'd probably try adding a different info source to your study. Maybe you need a clean start from a different author's perspective. I second jvrlopez's recommendation for the the Sybex book. I used it, the Harris book, and Conrad's 11th Hour, and they all had strengths. For me, I spent the longest on Harris, then I took something like 3 weeks going through the Sybex book. The Sybex book was an easier read for me -- a little less detail on some things, but still great coverage. Then the last few days before the exam I used the 11th Hour book. I thought that was a great summary and covered most of the things I would have taken notes on if I was a note taking kind of guy.

Joe

jvrlopez

Forgot to mention those as well. The 11th Hour was a great study guide right before the test. I read each domain in it after covering it in the Sybex book. I also compounded the same domain with the intro and review from the All In One book. The night before the test, I read the 11th Hour cover to cover (it took about 3 hours, it's about 180 pages IIRC).

itguy1979

I can almost guarantee if you do this you will pass...

CCCure.org practice exams.. Keep taking them until you consistently score 80% or higher in al domains....

dustervoice

itguy1979 wrote: »

I can almost guarantee if you do this you will pass...

CCCure.org practice exams.. Keep taking them until you consistently score 80% or higher in al domains....

do you work for cccure?