Passed my CISSP Today

Well... I took and passed my CISSP today.

I'm in an MBA program with a concentration in Cyber Security and one course this last quarter was focused on policy- or the CISSP. After the quarter, I scheduled, studied, took and passed my CISSP.

I used the Sybex book. I liked it- there were two topics the book didn't cover that I got hit with and improvised on- Cross-site Request Forgery, and the life cycle of an APT...

Overall- its a bear of a test. As for strategy- I read a few posts that mentioned multiple passes of the test and after taking a sample test, I knew that wasn't for me. I lost mental command at about question 150-200 on the practice test (I took one 20 minute break in that sample test) and I decided, I'd really work a lot of breaks into my test taking.

So I took 4 during the actual CISSP. One at 75, another at 150, another at 200, and the final at 250. I know, you're like wait! Its only 250 questions long!

I used the write erase sheet to mark down questions to revisit. Those that I was unsure of the answer. I'd say there were about 30 when the test was done.

I was initially planning on doing a 50 question interval of breaks, but I was really on a break for the first 50 questions, but I didn't want to abandon the momentum, or did I want to burn out... So I compromised at 75.

In the end, I was in there for less than 4 hours. (test was at 8 [was starting near or before that time] and was headed for a celebration beer by 11:45). I chose to not review a TON of questions. I really wanted to go with my gut instinct and not get into a situation where I was second guessing myself.

There were a few questions that I was like- I have no clue. No amount of reasoning would produce the correct answer. I'm hoping those were the sample questions.

If I can answer any non-test-specific questions, please ask.

Billy

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Comments

GoodBishop

Congrats!!!

cyberguypr

Congrats on the pass!

jvrlopez

Was the test as hard you thought or others had made it out to be?

G.Hayduke

First of all congrats on the pass!

I'm starting to review the CISSP material and there's simply too much out there. Did you only use the Sybex book as your source? How long did it take you to cover the material before sitting for the test?

cgrimaldo

Congrats!

ethkhkr

Congratulations!

jvrlopez

G.Hayduke wrote: »

First of all congrats on the pass!

I'm starting to review the CISSP material and there's simply too much out there. Did you only use the Sybex book as your source? How long did it take you to cover the material before sitting for the test?

The Sybex book was my primary study material. It took me about 3 weeks to read it at a leisurely pace and 8 days to read it domain by domain, in detail. Of course reading it cover to cover and being able to recall and understand the material in it are two different things.