Passed 6/17
First time posting but long time lurker here. I just wanted to thank everyone here for the advice, encouragement and support for everyone going through this process.
Here is my story
I had a voucher from the boot camp that I attended last year and tried to schedule the exam before the expiration date. I tried to schedule the exam 4 days before the voucher was going to expire. Little did I know that the exam had to be taken before the expiration date. So that put me in panic mode. Fortunately, I live in the NYC area and the only testing center with an open slot was in NYC. I felt I was in no way prepared for the exam and worse case would use take the exam for practice. My intention was to schedule it for September. I had my wife keep the kids away from me which sucked because it was father's day and hunkered down with the 11th hour and referencing Shon's AIO for more clarification if needed. I started to take notes but after the first day realized that it was too time consuming so I stopped.
Exam Day
Arrive at test site and placed everything in the lockers and proceeding through the whole registration process. They took a palm scan of both hands and a mug shot. They had me turn my pockets inside out to make sure I did not have anything in my pants pockets. If you need to take a break you had to be signed out by the test administrator and palm scanned out. When you came back you had to turn your pockets inside out, verify palm scan and the logged back in by the administrator. I only took one bathroom break halfway through the exam because the whole process took too long. I did not eat breakfast or drink coffee for the fear that I might have the craps during the exam. All I had was a 16oz bottle of mountain dew.
My strategy going into the exam was to do 2 passes of the exam and flag the ones I wasn't sure of and move on. By the time I got to question 20 I abandoned that strategy since I was flagging every single one! I completed my first pass at around the 5 hour mark and then proceeded to the second pass. With 8 minutes left in the exam and 100 questions in the second pass I decided to call it a day. I did change about 10 answers on my second pass. I raised my hand and the test administrator comes and gets me. I tell him I will see you back in a month. He said did your results on the screen? I said no. He points to the guy at the front desk and says go get your results from him. I walk over to the front desk and I guess he heard my conversation with the test administrator and says, "Looks good to me" and hands me the paper. I looked at the results and it said I Passed! I did a double take to make sure it was my name on the report. I wanted to hug the old man but he was distracted by the attractive lady that just walked in. On my way home on the train, I really didn’t know what to do with myself. So I did what I was used to doing on my commutes. I started listening to the Shon Harris mp3's. I know. I know. I am such a loser
.
Overall, I was expecting the exam to be more technical and that I would be mentally exhausted halfway through the exam. Especially, since I had only gone through 30 practice question from cccure and had not built up my test taking stamina. Maybe it was the adrenaline. For questions that had 2 very good answers I always chose the one that mentioned business. I got a couple of drag and drop questions and a couple of the scenario question that tried to overload/distract you with information that was not necessary to answer the question. There were a handful of questions that were written so poorly that I had no clue what they were asking me. Those made me angry! I got a couple of questions on the cloud but since my study materials were relatively dated I answered those to the best of my ability. I went into the exam feeling that I had a 10-15% chance of passing so the exam didn't really stress me out. Maybe I got the easier version of the exam
Materials used
CISSP 5 Day Boot Camp
Shon Harris AIO 5th Edition - Used as reference
Shon Harris MP3's – Listened to it daily on my 2 hour commute over the past year. Went through it 4X. This was my main resource.
Eric Conrad – 11th Hour (Read up to chapter 7)
CISSP for Dummies 2nd Edition - Used as reference
Sunflower PDF
CCCure – Did about 30 practice questions only
Here is my story
I had a voucher from the boot camp that I attended last year and tried to schedule the exam before the expiration date. I tried to schedule the exam 4 days before the voucher was going to expire. Little did I know that the exam had to be taken before the expiration date. So that put me in panic mode. Fortunately, I live in the NYC area and the only testing center with an open slot was in NYC. I felt I was in no way prepared for the exam and worse case would use take the exam for practice. My intention was to schedule it for September. I had my wife keep the kids away from me which sucked because it was father's day and hunkered down with the 11th hour and referencing Shon's AIO for more clarification if needed. I started to take notes but after the first day realized that it was too time consuming so I stopped.
Exam Day
Arrive at test site and placed everything in the lockers and proceeding through the whole registration process. They took a palm scan of both hands and a mug shot. They had me turn my pockets inside out to make sure I did not have anything in my pants pockets. If you need to take a break you had to be signed out by the test administrator and palm scanned out. When you came back you had to turn your pockets inside out, verify palm scan and the logged back in by the administrator. I only took one bathroom break halfway through the exam because the whole process took too long. I did not eat breakfast or drink coffee for the fear that I might have the craps during the exam. All I had was a 16oz bottle of mountain dew.
My strategy going into the exam was to do 2 passes of the exam and flag the ones I wasn't sure of and move on. By the time I got to question 20 I abandoned that strategy since I was flagging every single one! I completed my first pass at around the 5 hour mark and then proceeded to the second pass. With 8 minutes left in the exam and 100 questions in the second pass I decided to call it a day. I did change about 10 answers on my second pass. I raised my hand and the test administrator comes and gets me. I tell him I will see you back in a month. He said did your results on the screen? I said no. He points to the guy at the front desk and says go get your results from him. I walk over to the front desk and I guess he heard my conversation with the test administrator and says, "Looks good to me" and hands me the paper. I looked at the results and it said I Passed! I did a double take to make sure it was my name on the report. I wanted to hug the old man but he was distracted by the attractive lady that just walked in. On my way home on the train, I really didn’t know what to do with myself. So I did what I was used to doing on my commutes. I started listening to the Shon Harris mp3's. I know. I know. I am such a loser
.Overall, I was expecting the exam to be more technical and that I would be mentally exhausted halfway through the exam. Especially, since I had only gone through 30 practice question from cccure and had not built up my test taking stamina. Maybe it was the adrenaline. For questions that had 2 very good answers I always chose the one that mentioned business. I got a couple of drag and drop questions and a couple of the scenario question that tried to overload/distract you with information that was not necessary to answer the question. There were a handful of questions that were written so poorly that I had no clue what they were asking me. Those made me angry! I got a couple of questions on the cloud but since my study materials were relatively dated I answered those to the best of my ability. I went into the exam feeling that I had a 10-15% chance of passing so the exam didn't really stress me out. Maybe I got the easier version of the exam
Materials used
CISSP 5 Day Boot Camp
Shon Harris AIO 5th Edition - Used as reference
Shon Harris MP3's – Listened to it daily on my 2 hour commute over the past year. Went through it 4X. This was my main resource.
Eric Conrad – 11th Hour (Read up to chapter 7)
CISSP for Dummies 2nd Edition - Used as reference
Sunflower PDF
CCCure – Did about 30 practice questions only
Comments
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yeah yeah
Member Posts: 77 ■■□□□□□□□□
Congrats! Your study story reminds me of mine, rushed. That adrenaline does pop up to keep you going through the later rounds of the exam. -
CyberfiSecurity
Member Posts: 184
Congrats![SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Vice President | Citigroup, Inc.
President/CEO | Agility Fidelis, Inc. -
EasyPeezy
Member Posts: 111 ■■■□□□□□□□
Brilliant story... congratulations.2015 Goals: ISO27001:Lead Auditor COLOR=#FF0000]Passed[/COLOR...
2016 Goals: M.Sc Cyber Security :study:, ITILF COLOR=#FF0000]Passed[/COLOR, COBIT5 F COLOR=#ff0000]Feb[/COLOR][COLOR=#ff0000].[/COLOR, CGEITCOLOR=#ff0000]Jun[/COLOR][COLOR=#ff0000]. ???[/COLOR, CIPMCOLOR=#ff0000]???[/COLOR -
jvrlopez
Member Posts: 913 ■■■■□□□□□□
Glad you were able to use that voucher in time and pass!And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high. ~Ayrton Senna
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subbudharnasi
Member Posts: 6 ■■■□□□□□□□
Hey. Congratulations!!! you have done it.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Iam going to give CISSP exam on 28/06/2014, Saturday. I solicit valuable comments/guidance for final exam.
My study plan:
Material Used:
1. CBK 3rd Ed. (studied once)
2. Shon Harris AIO 6th Ed. (studied once)
3. Eric Conrad study guide (my primary study material)
4. Eric Conrad - 11th Hr (for quick reference)
5. CISSP in 21 Days by ML Srinivasan
Exam Practice:
1. Total Tester (practiced all questions)
2. McGraw Hill website online quizs
3. Questions from CBK/AIO/Eric Conrad/21 days book
Altogether I might have practiced more than 4000 qs. I got average of 75% in my practice tests. Recently I took SIMPLE LEARN online full length practice test and got 166/250 (66%).
My strategy for next three days is:
1. Study Eric Conrad 11th Hr completely,
2. Review CBK/AIO/Eric Conrad 2nd Ed for important points.
Iam nervous about my exam, requesting for guidance/suggestions from you all.
Thanks -
xheesh
Member Posts: 8 ■□□□□□□□□□
I would say the mp3's. Some people couldn't stand her voice and the jokes she made but I actually thought she was funny. I do feel that she goes deeper than what is required to pass the exam but that helped me get a solid foundation of the concepts.
