Passed CISSP on first attempt
Hello Everyone,
I am glad to inform everyone that I have passed the CISSP exam on first attempt this past Friday. This will be a long post but I am sure it will help people who have been dedicated on this exam preparation. A brief background about me- I have about 5 years of work experience most of it being in information security. Academically, I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science and an MS in Information Security.
I took the CISSP boot camp with SecureNinja in Jan-2014 mainly because I wanted to take class with Clement Dupuis (one behind cccure.org). I didn't do any preparation and hence the bootcamp wasn't much useful for me. End of Feb was when i started studying, aiming to take the Exam in Oct. Around March this year, I booked the exam for Oct 24. During the last 6-7 months, I studies through numerous books/resources some of which are highlighted below.
1. AIO 6th Shon Harris- Very good for concept building although its hard to read this. Before the exam i tried to read all the summaries at the end of chapter and provided in highlights after every few pages.
2. Eric Conrad 2nd Edition- I started reading this and finished about 8/10 domains. It created a base and confidence to start going through AIO.
3. Eric Conrad 11th Hour- Read it 2-3 times but didn't do it in last few days. I think it lacks enough content.
4. Practice Questions from Shon Harris- Great questions. Focussed on scenario based- exam based on scenarios.
5. Total Tested CD- about 1000 questions- Good questions
6. Cccure paid- Did all questions- about 900. - not much useful as its pure memorization of concepts.
7. Transcender’s CISSP Exam questions - Did all the questions, i think about 1000. Good thing with these are that they provide detailed answers of why a certain option is right and why others are wrong. You can use this for preparation in office even if you havent gone through the book on your own.
8. I bought the shon harris question bank but didn't get time to get through those. I think it is a good resource to train your mind for scenario questions.
9. ISC2 250 questions 3 test exams. I did 2 of them and scored around 75%. I think they are not much useful as you don't get a detailed breakdown of the answers which help the most in your preparation.
I used many other resources but I think everyone have mentioned the resources so i wouldn't bring anything new.
Last 1 month, I was only giving exams/doing questions. Training your mind and maintaining focus for 6 hours is not an easy job. I think I took few 100+ questions exams and then randomly did questions where ever I could find them. I also listened to shon harris mp3 in the initial few months but last couple months i didn't had the drive to listen to her.
The major difference is to think like a "manager" and use the "prudent man" approach for all the questions. Even if you do not have years of experience, if you train your mind to think like a manager, you will be able to ace the exam. For me, that was the biggest challenge. I had several scenario based questions and i think majority of my exam was Telecomm (My weak domain (was getting around 50% in mocks but in actual exam I was able to reason through the questions). We have several seniors here who have iterated this approach in detail. If you are a regular follower of TE, you would be able to find those posts. In the last few weeks, I noticed people mentioning they "enjoyed" the exam. I think that only comes when you are thoroughly prepared and not scared to see any question that you can't reason through. For me, CISSP exam preparation was a scary period as i used to read several folks giving the exam several times. I already had the exam registered for Oct but decided to prepone it (idea was to see the questions and then prepare again and give exam in another month). I took the exam last Friday and thankfully got through. I do agree with few folks here who said they "enjoyed" the exam because I did too. I think out of 250 questions, barely 5-6 questions i had no clue (may be twisted wording and could be from the research bunch questions). At the end of exam, I was pretty confident that I got this and even if i didn't i was motivated that i am coming back in a month. Good thing, that wasn't required. CISSP has been a dream for me since 2007, even before i decided to get into the field. But finally i sacrificed NYC spring and summer to prepare for this exam and glad that it went through well.
I am sure many of you would have questions/doubts/etc so please feel free to post your questions. I'll be happy to share my experience and give the few tips that helped me along the way.
Good luck.
Dave
I am glad to inform everyone that I have passed the CISSP exam on first attempt this past Friday. This will be a long post but I am sure it will help people who have been dedicated on this exam preparation. A brief background about me- I have about 5 years of work experience most of it being in information security. Academically, I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science and an MS in Information Security.
I took the CISSP boot camp with SecureNinja in Jan-2014 mainly because I wanted to take class with Clement Dupuis (one behind cccure.org). I didn't do any preparation and hence the bootcamp wasn't much useful for me. End of Feb was when i started studying, aiming to take the Exam in Oct. Around March this year, I booked the exam for Oct 24. During the last 6-7 months, I studies through numerous books/resources some of which are highlighted below.
1. AIO 6th Shon Harris- Very good for concept building although its hard to read this. Before the exam i tried to read all the summaries at the end of chapter and provided in highlights after every few pages.
2. Eric Conrad 2nd Edition- I started reading this and finished about 8/10 domains. It created a base and confidence to start going through AIO.
3. Eric Conrad 11th Hour- Read it 2-3 times but didn't do it in last few days. I think it lacks enough content.
4. Practice Questions from Shon Harris- Great questions. Focussed on scenario based- exam based on scenarios.
5. Total Tested CD- about 1000 questions- Good questions
6. Cccure paid- Did all questions- about 900. - not much useful as its pure memorization of concepts.
7. Transcender’s CISSP Exam questions - Did all the questions, i think about 1000. Good thing with these are that they provide detailed answers of why a certain option is right and why others are wrong. You can use this for preparation in office even if you havent gone through the book on your own.
8. I bought the shon harris question bank but didn't get time to get through those. I think it is a good resource to train your mind for scenario questions.
9. ISC2 250 questions 3 test exams. I did 2 of them and scored around 75%. I think they are not much useful as you don't get a detailed breakdown of the answers which help the most in your preparation.
I used many other resources but I think everyone have mentioned the resources so i wouldn't bring anything new.
Last 1 month, I was only giving exams/doing questions. Training your mind and maintaining focus for 6 hours is not an easy job. I think I took few 100+ questions exams and then randomly did questions where ever I could find them. I also listened to shon harris mp3 in the initial few months but last couple months i didn't had the drive to listen to her.
The major difference is to think like a "manager" and use the "prudent man" approach for all the questions. Even if you do not have years of experience, if you train your mind to think like a manager, you will be able to ace the exam. For me, that was the biggest challenge. I had several scenario based questions and i think majority of my exam was Telecomm (My weak domain (was getting around 50% in mocks but in actual exam I was able to reason through the questions). We have several seniors here who have iterated this approach in detail. If you are a regular follower of TE, you would be able to find those posts. In the last few weeks, I noticed people mentioning they "enjoyed" the exam. I think that only comes when you are thoroughly prepared and not scared to see any question that you can't reason through. For me, CISSP exam preparation was a scary period as i used to read several folks giving the exam several times. I already had the exam registered for Oct but decided to prepone it (idea was to see the questions and then prepare again and give exam in another month). I took the exam last Friday and thankfully got through. I do agree with few folks here who said they "enjoyed" the exam because I did too. I think out of 250 questions, barely 5-6 questions i had no clue (may be twisted wording and could be from the research bunch questions). At the end of exam, I was pretty confident that I got this and even if i didn't i was motivated that i am coming back in a month. Good thing, that wasn't required. CISSP has been a dream for me since 2007, even before i decided to get into the field. But finally i sacrificed NYC spring and summer to prepare for this exam and glad that it went through well.
I am sure many of you would have questions/doubts/etc so please feel free to post your questions. I'll be happy to share my experience and give the few tips that helped me along the way.
Good luck.
Dave
Comments
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Spin Lock
Member Posts: 142
Congratulations on passing Dave! You're post was very helpful and motivating! -
EasyPeezy
Member Posts: 111 ■■■□□□□□□□
Congratulations2015 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 -
victor58
Member Posts: 25 ■□□□□□□□□□
Thanks guys! Please feel free to message me or post here if there are any questions regarding the preparation.
