CISSP Passed First Time, 1/14: Summary and Writeup

LR0926

Hi everyone, long time reader here and I found this forum incredibly helpful in understanding how to best prepare and pass the CISSP. I figured I'd do a quick writeup to see if my experience could also help others that are preparing.

Looking back, I overstudied but going into it, I didnt want to take a chance I would fail and used the following for preparation:

Books Used:
-Sybex 6th Edition (read cover to cover)
-Eric Conrad (read cover to cover)
-Shon Harris AIO 6th Edition (Read 7/10 Domains)
-Eric Conrad 11th Hour (read each domain 2x week before exam)

Practice Questions:
-Total Tester (Solved once)
-McGraw Hill Questions (Solved Twice)
-Shon Harris Practice Question Book 2nd Edition (Solved 7/10 domains)
-Shon Harris AIO chapter and end of book questions
-Sybex Book Chapter Questions
-Conrad Book Chapter Questions

Full length Practice Exams:
-Transcender (Completed the 3 standard practice tests)
-Sybex online Practice Exams (Finished the 3 exams 2x)
-Eric Conrad online Practice Exam (Completed the first practice test)

My background is mainly in physical security and cryptography so I only had 1-2 years in the rest of the domains, the books helped fill in the blank spaces. I completed my first pass in 3 hours, did a second pass reviewing my flagged questions and a third pass going through every question to make sure I didnt misread the question or choices. I submitted the exam around the 5 hour mark.

The exam itself was much easier than a lot of the practice material. Reading this forum, I was concerned each question might be a 3-4 liner scenario but most were straightforward and you could easily eliminate two choices. The last two choices were often very tricky though and there were a lot of those and although I felt like I passed when I finished, I definitely wasnt sure and still nervous.

For study material, I feel the Eric Conrad and Sybex book and their accompanying exams would have been enough to pass. The Shon Harris practice question book, I felt, was the most challenging of all the practice material and much harder than the actual test. It wasnt needed but still good information to have. The Transcender and McGraw Hill questions were much deeper technically than what I encountered but were good practice in preparing to understand how to answer exam questions.

I'm off to bed now! Best wishes to everyone here and this forum is a great resource. I'll be focusing on GCIH next.

TheFORCE

Congratulations man!