Passed CISSP on 2nd
Passed CISSP last Saturday on a second try. I started studding back in January 2012 and fail my test in June 2012 with 698 after 6 mo of intensive studying. At that time I used only AIO by SH, and did no tests basically ( except in the last few weeks) - from CCCure.After the failure I was so disappointed that I basically gave up until I made a New Year resolution to pass CISSP. I started studying again on Jan 1 2015 using 4 hours /day during the week (working full time as a sec. architect- consultant), then taking 2 full 250 questions test Saturdays and Sundays. I used the available sources found in this great forum - I want to thank all members for the unbelievable effort put in sharing their experience and resources. I wanted to take no chance this time so I exhausted basically any possible resource:
Books read: AIO, Conrad, ICS2 guide, 11th hour, Microsoft Server Security, Corporate Security infrastructure, various IR risk books plus about 500 pages of hand written notes accumulated during my work as a consultant
Online resources: NIST -all 800 series, SANS write-ups, CCNP online trainings- found for $50 on Groupon, Hundreds of YouTube's, on different security topics, Kali linux (former backtrack) - all documentation etc
Tests: McGraw Hill, SH, Transcended, CCCure, Conrad online tests,
Also the latest SH test book that came out on March 2 2015. By the way this is a great resource with very similar questions to the actual exam.
Now, about the exam, there were no surprise questions as far as content. Is only just about twisting the words, I can say there were no notions that I had never heard off in all of the 250 questions. My only mistakes were probably because I could not figured out what the questions wanted from me. CISSP is good at asking a 2 word question in a twisted, complicated, ambiguous, long, confusing …phrase. In other words the whole key (besides mastering the subjects) is just interpreting the meaning of the question. I took me a little over 4 hour to finish then I had 45 questions flagged for review, which covered most of the last 2 hours. Towards the end I stopped reviewing them under the impression that I am loosing the clarity in interpretation-(started to doubt myself because of the intense concentration). At that moment I knew that I covered enough to pass.
Anyway that was it. Now follows the endorsement. About the endorsement: is it really necessary to supply the manager phone number and email inside my resume? I already provided that to my endorser to do the due diligence. (Actually my endorser is an executive within my current employer which already went through my credentials when I got hired).Besides that don’t know if the managers in cause are still there, one of the company I worked for it was just provided me with job assignments with their clients, they had no idea what my duties were.
Books read: AIO, Conrad, ICS2 guide, 11th hour, Microsoft Server Security, Corporate Security infrastructure, various IR risk books plus about 500 pages of hand written notes accumulated during my work as a consultant
Online resources: NIST -all 800 series, SANS write-ups, CCNP online trainings- found for $50 on Groupon, Hundreds of YouTube's, on different security topics, Kali linux (former backtrack) - all documentation etc
Tests: McGraw Hill, SH, Transcended, CCCure, Conrad online tests,
Also the latest SH test book that came out on March 2 2015. By the way this is a great resource with very similar questions to the actual exam.
Now, about the exam, there were no surprise questions as far as content. Is only just about twisting the words, I can say there were no notions that I had never heard off in all of the 250 questions. My only mistakes were probably because I could not figured out what the questions wanted from me. CISSP is good at asking a 2 word question in a twisted, complicated, ambiguous, long, confusing …phrase. In other words the whole key (besides mastering the subjects) is just interpreting the meaning of the question. I took me a little over 4 hour to finish then I had 45 questions flagged for review, which covered most of the last 2 hours. Towards the end I stopped reviewing them under the impression that I am loosing the clarity in interpretation-(started to doubt myself because of the intense concentration). At that moment I knew that I covered enough to pass.
Anyway that was it. Now follows the endorsement. About the endorsement: is it really necessary to supply the manager phone number and email inside my resume? I already provided that to my endorser to do the due diligence. (Actually my endorser is an executive within my current employer which already went through my credentials when I got hired).Besides that don’t know if the managers in cause are still there, one of the company I worked for it was just provided me with job assignments with their clients, they had no idea what my duties were.
Comments
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E Double U
Member Posts: 2,233 ■■■■■■■■■■
Passed CISSP last Saturday on a second try. I started studding back in January 2012 and fail my test in June 2012 with 698 after 6 mo of intensive studying.
Failing by two points must have really stung. I was upset about a 676.
Congratulations on passing it the 2nd time around.Alphabet soup from (ISC)2, ISACA, GIAC, EC-Council, Microsoft, ITIL, Cisco, Scrum, CompTIA, AWS -
InfoSecTechie
Registered Users Posts: 4 ■□□□□□□□□□
Congrats on passing. I missed it by 12 points and it took a while to bring myself back up.... can't imagine missing it by 2 points.
Do you mind posting a link to the SH test book your are referencing? -
Spin Lock
Member Posts: 142
Congrats on passing and thank you for the detailed write-up! Glad to hear the initial failure didn't deter you. -
GForce75
Member Posts: 222
Congrats! That's awesome you continued to push it! Enjoying being free from Shon Harris!Doctoral Candidate - BA (33/60hrs) ~ MBA/Project Management ~ BA/Business-IT -
radunegru
Registered Users Posts: 3 ■□□□□□□□□□
This is the book, came out on March 02InfoSecTechie wrote: »Congrats on passing. I missed it by 12 points and it took a while to bring myself back up.... can't imagine missing it by 2 points.
Do you mind posting a link to the SH test book your are referencing?
Pub. Date: March 2, 2015Publisher: McGraw-Hill EducationSold By: Barnes & NobleFormat: NOOK Book, 480pp Sales Rank: 498,622Series: All-in-OneFile Size: 6.9 MBISBN-13: 9780071845403 -
fullcrowmoon
Member Posts: 172
Congratulations!"It's so stimulating being your hat!"
"... but everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked." -
GLORRIIA
Registered Users Posts: 4 ■□□□□□□□□□
Congrats on passing the test. Hope your endorsement is smooth and fast.
I have one question for you. Does this statement "Also the latest SH test book that came out on March 2 2015. By the way this is a great resource with very similar questions to the actual exam", mean there is a new Shone Harris AIO book (7th edition) ? -
TheFORCE
Member Posts: 2,297 ■■■■■■■■□□
Congrats on passing the test. Hope your endorsement is smooth and fast.
I have one question for you. Does this statement "Also the latest SH test book that came out on March 2 2015. By the way this is a great resource with very similar questions to the actual exam", mean there is a new Shone Harris AIO book (7th edition) ?
No, that's not what it means. The book they are refering to is a a Practice test book, it is not the AIO 7th edition.
http://www.amazon.com/CISSP-Practice-Exams-Third-All--ebook/dp/B00S1QAEFG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426670700&sr=8-1&keywords=9780071845403
Also, Logical Security, the company Shon Harris had build, is closing shop and selling their the rest of the books. They says she was still working on new books but they do not mention anything about an AIO 7th edition for CISSP
http://logicalsecurity.com/?source=searchsecurity
