CISSP Exam scheduled for 01/05/2015

Hi everyone. I'm a long time lurker to this forum, but registered today as I've taken the next big step by registering for the CISSP exam. I've been studying for 3 months, really turned up the pace couple of weeks when I took off from work for the holidays. I've put in 4 to 6 hours of study daily and at this point i feel like my brain is now saturated with knowledge of all 10 domains.

My background is primarily in software development, c++/c#, pl/sql, web/java script and security. Ive design low level host based url filtering software, pki authentication solutions, distributed databases, and provided support to network operations (vendor protocol analysis), and created user access management tools for security administrators. Architected VM based environments for software development and testing and was an early adopter of Amazons AWS and Azure cloud services. I work for the DoD and looking to take my career to the next level by focusing more on info security/cybersecurity track as I see real career growth opportunity compared to where I am today as a software developer.

Within the last 4 years, my software development responsibilities have split evenly between designing software and ensuring the software passes IS control audits. In addition, I have been heavily involved with drafting software change, access, and security policies and procedures at the system level. Within my system there are dedicated personnel with INFOSEC responsibilities, however I find their expertise of regulations, best practices, security concepts is very shallow compared to mine, therefore they rely on my expertise quite often. I am pursuing the CISSP certificate as a way to boost my career in the long run.

For study material, I read the Shon Harris AIO twice, Eric Conrad 11th Hour twice (will review again night before the exam), CISSP V1.1 SUMMARY (plan on reviewing this again the morning of the exam).

I coupled studying with knowledge tests. I've taken McGraw Hill online domain tests, all Shon Harris questions from the AIO, Total Tester full simulated exams (250 questions) twice. I'm averaging 88÷ overall with certain domains getting high 90s and others, low 80s. I think overall I've answered over 1500 test questions.

When I began my journey, I had never sat for an IT certification exam thus I made the strategic decision to suspend my CISSP studies for 2 weeks by studying for and passing the Security+ exam on 12/8/2015. With that being said, I felt the Security+ was similar enough to the CISSP that the momentary diversion was worthwhile and actually boosted my confidence, as I scored 872 out of 900. I'm now extra motivated to finish up my CISSP studies and close out this chapter.

Wish me luck!

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Comments

DirtyData

Good luck! I'll be following your footsteps in 3 months myself. Any feedback after you take the test, good or bad, would be awesome if you could. Again, good luck!

-DirtyData

Keenlearner

Good luck man! I'm also preparing for cissp, my schedule date is March 30th, 2015. I'm motivated after reading your post. I'm also studying the same content, Shon Harris AIO 6th, Eric Conrad 11th Hour and Sunflower pdf. I will going to do cccure, MCGraw questions, and quizes from AIO book.

Please share your experience and suggestions.

Regards,
- KeenLearner -

Mdluffy317

The exam was brutal! I used the entire 6 hours for the exam. In the end, I passed but would love to know my score. For anyone interested in how the test went for me, see below.

Woke up around 5am, got coffee and reviewed the Sunflower summary as well as pertinent parts of the Shon Harris AIO dealing with ISO/IEC Standards. I arrived at the testing site at 7:59, my appointment time was 8am. I waited maybe 15-20 minutes while other exam takers were being processed.

Examination begins, 360 minutes to go: The first hour of the exam went by quickly, I was feeling really good about my odds as I only flagged 10 or so questions for later review. I mentally prepared to only flag the really tough questions where I had really low confidence level with answer.

300 Minutes to go, 70 questions answered: My pace changed drastically. I slowed down maybe by 50% by now, spent more time analyzing the presented questions. I am flagging a lot questions.

240 Minutes to go, 140 questions answered: Self doubt increases. For about a 30 minute span or so, I flagged just about every question that came up. I believe it was due to anxiety, fretting that I was picking the wrong answers. I caught myself, decided it's now time for a break. Raised my hands to signal the TA. Went outside the test area, stretched my legs and took a restroom break. I was away 1-3 minutes, but it helped me reset and re-adjust my focus. Returned to my desk, and picked up the pace.

120 Minutes to go, 200 questions answered: I had a bunch of questions flagged and queued, so I had to really pick up the pace. By this time I had a rhythm down. I started to believe I could pass the exam.

50 Minutes to go, 250 questions answered (or so I thought): Great I finished! But by this time I was more relieved like a runner finishing a long slow marathon race. I mentally consoled myself for my apparent bad performance. What if I fail the exam? What a waste of $600 that would be. Not only that, I just wasted 6 hours of my time on an exam just to fail! Well its water under the bridge now, now its time to review the questions I flagged.

40 Minutes to go: I made an eyeball estimate of how many questions out of the 250 that I flagged for review. I guesstimate it was between 50-75 questions. In reviewing the first few flagged questions, I felt like I answered them correctly in the first place. I still spent time analyzing the questions anyway. It also became apparent to me that I was too harsh on myself and often flagged questions out of precaution.

10 Minutes to go: Still reviewing the questions I flagged, but picking up the pace of the review. I changed maybe a handful of answers by now.

1 Minutes to go: Reviewing last few flagged questions, at this point I felt really great about my progress, but still rushing to get the last few questions reviewed.

20 Seconds to go: Yup, still reviewing, I guess I flagged more questions than anticipated. Oh well, I reviewed what I could.

Times up!

I picked up my belongings and went to the TA. The TA had me verify my identity one last time, and handed me an upside down printout. A lot of scenarios were playing out in my mind at this point. If I failed the exam, did another me in a different universe pass? If I pass, the the other me fail? I turned over the sheet, and was happy to see the CONGRATULATIONS! What a relief!

aftereffector

Great work! Thanks for coming back and sharing your experience with us. Good luck with the verification process!

chickenlicken09

well done. Is the verification process tough? Once you have someone to verify you one needs to just wait is that correct?

dustervoice

Congrats on passing. U've put in hard now celebrate.

Meanand

Congratulations

DirtyData

Way to go!!!!

Spin Lock

Congratulations. Thanks for sharing your exam experience. It helps knowing the felling of uncertainty is so common during the test. I'll keep that in mind.