Passed CISSP on 1st attempt (4/2/2015)
Passed this monster on the 1st try (04/02/2015) now waiting for endorsement.
Study Sources:
1. Official CISSP CBK Review course (the student handbook is the best - a little over 700+ pages and straight to the point!!!)
2. Cybrary.it (instructor was awesome, i will definitely check out more of their courses)
3. Shon Harris practice exam software
4. CCCure scenario based practice questions
The key for me was to "brute force" the areas of weakness into my head...put the mp3 version of shon harris on my smartphone...total tester installed at home and at work...watched the cybrary.it course on my smartphone, watched it at home and at work. Lastly, I got a lot of rest the night before...stopped reviewing around 10 PM, test started at 8:00 AM.
Took me a total of 5 hours 40 minutes with no breaks. (I went through the entire test 2 times and then reviewed only the questions that I still had flagged.)
Took me almost an hour to drive home because traffic was horrible but I didnt care since I was in a happy place.
Study Sources:
1. Official CISSP CBK Review course (the student handbook is the best - a little over 700+ pages and straight to the point!!!)
2. Cybrary.it (instructor was awesome, i will definitely check out more of their courses)
3. Shon Harris practice exam software
4. CCCure scenario based practice questions
The key for me was to "brute force" the areas of weakness into my head...put the mp3 version of shon harris on my smartphone...total tester installed at home and at work...watched the cybrary.it course on my smartphone, watched it at home and at work. Lastly, I got a lot of rest the night before...stopped reviewing around 10 PM, test started at 8:00 AM.
Took me a total of 5 hours 40 minutes with no breaks. (I went through the entire test 2 times and then reviewed only the questions that I still had flagged.)
Took me almost an hour to drive home because traffic was horrible but I didnt care since I was in a happy place.
Comments
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E Double U
Member Posts: 2,233 ■■■■■■■■■■
The key for me was to "brute force" the areas of weakness into my head...put the mp3 version of shon harris on my smartphone...total tester installed at home and at work..Lastly, I got a lot of rest the night before.
Took me almost an hour to drive home because traffic was horrible but I didnt care since I was in a happy place.
Exactly the same for me lol. Congrats!Alphabet soup from (ISC)2, ISACA, GIAC, EC-Council, Microsoft, ITIL, Cisco, Scrum, CompTIA, AWS -
Spin Lock
Member Posts: 142
Congrats on passing Rickberr !
I take it from your comments that the Student Handbook had the right level topic coverage and depth? -
Veei
Member Posts: 11 ■□□□□□□□□□
Congrats! I finished with 40 min to go and burned probably close to 30 min due to a couple breaks. Didn't really have time to go through my questions a second time. I reviewed the first 40 or so questions in those last 40 min but I was soooooooo burned I just gave up and hit end. Surprised I passed! Was really thinking it was a no-go for me! Serious trooper for going 5.5 hours with no breaks! Sheesh! -
rickberr
Member Posts: 66 ■■□□□□□□□□
Yes, Spin Lock...the handbook is like a combination of the various online study guides but with more detail on most of the topics, for example 121 of the 609 pages was dedicated to Telecommunications. The SSCP student handbook was also excellent and had a similar layout. -
rickberr
Member Posts: 66 ■■□□□□□□□□
@Veei thanks...I will be honest, I think I got at least 1-2 of the 25 "future/feeler" questions within the first 25 questions and I started to panic so periodically I would put my marker down, take a few deep breaths, think of words of encouragement and then continue so I guess I took breaks but just never left my desk. I was too scared that if I left the room my focus would be gone so I just pushed through to the end. It was around question 110 that my confidence returned and by the time I finished reviewing my answers my gut feeling was that I passed.
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Spin Lock
Member Posts: 142
Yes, Spin Lock...the handbook is like a combination of the various online study guides but with more detail on most of the topics, for example 121 of the 609 pages was dedicated to Telecommunications. The SSCP student handbook was also excellent and had a similar layout.
Great. Thanks for the feedback! -
papadoc
Member Posts: 154
@Veei thanks...I will be honest, I think I got at least 1-2 of the 25 "future/feeler" questions within the first 25 questions and I started to panic so periodically I would put my marker down, take a few deep breaths, think of words of encouragement and then continue so I guess I took breaks but just never left my desk. I was too scared that if I left the room my focus would be gone so I just pushed through to the end. It was around question 110 that my confidence returned and by the time I finished reviewing my answers my gut feeling was that I passed.
Gangsta man, but whatever works for you. Big congrats! I got the "25 test" questions towards the end of the exam and noticed them right away because they veered into areas that I never studied or saw, but I knew the answers due to my experience in other areas of IT.
