Seeking guidance on CISSP test/exam questions??

Hi Seniors,

I have been preparing for CISSP exam for quite sometime (close to 6 months). I have gone through the Shon Harris book once and have read few chapters here and there from sybex book and syngress. I also read the 11th hour. My biggest challenge has been with retaining the knowledge from all the domains. My weak domain seems telecomm obviously and to certain extent few others as well. I have done shon harris end of chapter quizzes and the question bank from total tester that comes along with the book. I did the question bank from Clement freepracticetest. I had a paid account and went through all the questions once but that was a month ago so i retain anything now. In fact that has been the case with the overall 10 domains.I have also gone through almost all 19 CISSP Lite mock exams from CISSP Exam prep-1000 practice questions by SSI and have been scoring about 75%-80%. I should be able to finish that book in another couple days. Somehow those questions seemed too easy and i suspect if they helped me at all to where i was before i did this book. Any feed back on it would be helpful as well.

My exam is 3 weeks away and i still feel not totally engrossed in the exam prep, i have time but somehow the motivation is going down. I want to keep up, at least give few hours each day till the exam day. So here are my questions with respect to the practice test questions.

1. I have read almost all the posts in the last 4-5 months here. I see that people have been recommending Mc Graw Hill questions as its close to the actual questions on the exam. Is this the link that everyone is referring to? It seems the questions are divided per domain so ill have to go individually on these. Is this correct?

McGraw-Hill Education | CISSP Practice Exams

Also does MH have 250 question exam that i can take or these are all the ones that exist?

2. People have also recommended going through 250 question exam from syngress on their website. There are 2 exams and i did one of them recently. I scored about 70% and have been doing careless mistakes. I don't know how to tackle those.

3. People have also recommended buying transcender question bank. I bought it but i haven't started doing the questions. Does transcender questions/answers a good way to prepare for the exam? Again main question here being, the type of questions asked at transcender, is it close to the actual exam?

4. I also bought the 3, 250 questions exam from ISC2. I haven't taken those exams but i have heard mixed responses about the format of questions and comparison to the actual exam. Would you advise going through those 3 exams as well?

5. Am i missing any other question bank which would be better than the above based on folks who prepared and passed the exam?

6. Also after doing the scenario based questions from shon harris book, i realized that i have no clue how to respond to those questions. I heard that shon harris question bank is also there and some people have gone through it. Would it make sense to do some questions from that book? i doubt i'll be able to do the whole book in short time i have. Any rough estimate, how many scenario based questions can we expect at the exam?

Understandably so, it eventually comes down to concepts and work experience. My work experience is about 5 years, all in IT Audit/Security. I know my work experience is less and after reading many of the posts it seemed that majority of the folks had to answer about 60% of the questions on the exam based on their work experience. Please correct me if i am wrong. If this is the case, what else can i do other than just reviewing the summary from shon harris and reading notes that i made along the way ( also have sunflower document and couple other documents that folks have discussed at forum in the past).

Please suggest how best I can utilize the last few weeks for preparation? I hope i can keep up a rhythm. Also, i haven't given any 250 question exam in one seating and i think thats another place where i lose focus after every few questions ie.e sitting at a stretch for that long. I know JDMurray suggested to give sereral 250 question exams to tackle the mind for the actual exam. May be taking couple 250 exam questions and forcing myself to sit through it will make a difference?

Any suggestions would be great at this time. Just looking for some dedicated direction to utilize my time in last few weeks.

Thanks,
Dave

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Comments

Expect

Hi.
First of all, take it easy.
3 weeks is still plenty of time to study, I truly believe that with this amount of subjects covered by the CISSP, it is impossible to know every bit of CISSP by heart.
Take your time to read the CBK and see which domain/subject you're most weak on, then read about it to understand, don't read about it just for the actual exam, that way it will be easier to understand and remember for you.
I can personally say that CCCure is a good question resource, and same goes for Transcender. if you still have a chance, I advise you to purchase a subscription while you still have the time.

philz1982

I used 11th hour and this pdf.

http://www.kilala.nl/Sysadmin/Images/CISSP_Summary_V1.1.pdf

The PDF I memorized everything else was reading.

I took the Mcgraw hill questions and anything I didn't know I researched via SAN white papers and the search feature on this forum.

I avoided Shon Harris's book, to much information in my opinion.

In the case of the CISSP less is actually more. You simply need to have the PDF I recommended memorized. The rest is applying the concepts from a business perspective. If you tackle this like a technical exam you will fail. If you approach it from a business continuity perspective you will pass.

-Phil

victor58

Expect wrote: »

Hi.
First of all, take it easy.
3 weeks is still plenty of time to study, I truly believe that with this amount of subjects covered by the CISSP, it is impossible to know every bit of CISSP by heart.
Take your time to read the CBK and see which domain/subject you're most weak on, then read about it to understand, don't read about it just for the actual exam, that way it will be easier to understand and remember for you.
I can personally say that CCCure is a good question resource, and same goes for Transcender. if you still have a chance, I advise you to purchase a subscription while you still have the time.

Thanks Expect.
Whats your take on shon harris, practice exams book? Would you recommend that over transcender? Or i should stick with the latter? I have both of them but want to utilize time where its most beneficial.
Also, i am unable to remember TCSEC, ITSEC, Orangebook. Do you this it is required to memorize all the levels? I have a decent idea common criteria. Just wondering if there is still reference on orange book on the exam?

victor58

philz1982 wrote: »

I used 11th hour and this pdf.

http://www.kilala.nl/Sysadmin/Images/CISSP_Summary_V1.1.pdf

The PDF I memorized everything else was reading.

I took the Mcgraw hill questions and anything I didn't know I researched via SAN white papers and the search feature on this forum.

I avoided Shon Harris's book, to much information in my opinion.

In the case of the CISSP less is actually more. You simply need to have the PDF I recommended memorized. The rest is applying the concepts from a business perspective. If you tackle this like a technical exam you will fail. If you approach it from a business continuity perspective you will pass.

-Phil

Thanks Phil. I have the sunflower but i have to go through it. I'll see if i can go through it multiple times to ensure i remember most of the info if not all. Considering that my industry work ex is somewhat less (about 5 years), is there any aid that can help me to learn the strategies to answer questions from a manegerial perspective instead of being deviated by a technical answer?

Me86

victor58 wrote: »

Thanks Phil. I have the sunflower but i have to go through it. I'll see if i can go through it multiple times to ensure i remember most of the info if not all. Considering that my industry work ex is somewhat less (about 5 years), is there any aid that can help me to learn the strategies to answer questions from a manegerial perspective instead of being deviated by a technical answer?

The sunflower document is from 2009. Are the concepts still accurate and up to date ?

JDMurray

That doc won't contain any objectives added to the CISSP in the past five years, and will contain objectives that have been dropped in the current exam, so don't use it as your only study source.