Passed the New CISSP Exam today [15th June, 2015]
grungeisevil
Member Posts: 39 ■■□□□□□□□□
in SSCP
I'm still in shocked to be honest. The whole experience was definitely a roller coaster ride. I have a new found respect, both for the exam as well as the folks who sat through it. Here's how I prepared and also about the exam itself:
Preparation:
Eric Conrad's CISSP Study Guide 2nd Editon
Primary reference guide for me. Read through most of the chapters.
Kelly Handerhan's Cybrary's FREE CISSP Training
A very (very) good CBT that helped me to piece together the things I've read about.
Keith Barker's CISSP CBT Nuggets
Wish I would have watched this first before I started reading the book. Keith makes it easy to understand without going into much depth.
CCCure Questions
A good tool that helped me to enforce my understanding but I'll talk a little more about this later.
Personally for me, I need to write down notes as I read, which helps me not only to understand but also memorize the facts, when I review them back.
The Exam
Arrived at the testing center early. There were some problems with the Pearson Vue's registration system and the testing machine itself, which delayed the whole thing about 1 hour.
The exam questions were very tricky so much so that I had to read it thrice! and even then some of them were still so vague. Some of them had a direct answer you could have picked out immediately, but for most of them, I had to take my time, read them word for word, before selecting the one I thought was the correct answer.
It took me exactly 5 hours and 30 minutes to complete the exam inclusive of reviewing the flagged questions (had about 15 of them). Walked over to the receptionist, she didn't smile which made my heart sank a little until I saw the words "CONGRATULATIONS"
TIPS
- Doing practice questions help to reinforce what you've learned but never depend on it 100%. I would say the number of questions that I saw on the exam which was similar (not the same) to CCCure's questions were probably 3/4 max. Please don't bash me for this if you've taken the exam and had a different experience. Just speaking out of my own.
- Don't opt to memorize the facts, instead opt to understand them and try to find examples on how they work in real life scenarios. Example: Instead of just knowing that is KDC stands for Key Distribution Center that distribute keys, also try to understand how KDC defeat replay attacks.
- There were about 20-30 questions on the new material. Here's a link from CCCure to give you an idea what are the new topics added.
- In my humble and honest opinion, please do not bother with the new CBK. It is just very poorly written. Lots of fluff between the facts. Wanted to purchase it but thank god I read the sample chapters on Google Books.
So that's it from me. Now I need to get started on my endorsement process. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.
For those of you who are taking the exam soon, good luck and all the best!
Preparation:
Eric Conrad's CISSP Study Guide 2nd Editon
Primary reference guide for me. Read through most of the chapters.
Kelly Handerhan's Cybrary's FREE CISSP Training
A very (very) good CBT that helped me to piece together the things I've read about.
Keith Barker's CISSP CBT Nuggets
Wish I would have watched this first before I started reading the book. Keith makes it easy to understand without going into much depth.
CCCure Questions
A good tool that helped me to enforce my understanding but I'll talk a little more about this later.
Personally for me, I need to write down notes as I read, which helps me not only to understand but also memorize the facts, when I review them back.
The Exam
Arrived at the testing center early. There were some problems with the Pearson Vue's registration system and the testing machine itself, which delayed the whole thing about 1 hour.
The exam questions were very tricky so much so that I had to read it thrice! and even then some of them were still so vague. Some of them had a direct answer you could have picked out immediately, but for most of them, I had to take my time, read them word for word, before selecting the one I thought was the correct answer.
It took me exactly 5 hours and 30 minutes to complete the exam inclusive of reviewing the flagged questions (had about 15 of them). Walked over to the receptionist, she didn't smile which made my heart sank a little until I saw the words "CONGRATULATIONS"
TIPS
- Doing practice questions help to reinforce what you've learned but never depend on it 100%. I would say the number of questions that I saw on the exam which was similar (not the same) to CCCure's questions were probably 3/4 max. Please don't bash me for this if you've taken the exam and had a different experience. Just speaking out of my own.
- Don't opt to memorize the facts, instead opt to understand them and try to find examples on how they work in real life scenarios. Example: Instead of just knowing that is KDC stands for Key Distribution Center that distribute keys, also try to understand how KDC defeat replay attacks.
- There were about 20-30 questions on the new material. Here's a link from CCCure to give you an idea what are the new topics added.
- In my humble and honest opinion, please do not bother with the new CBK. It is just very poorly written. Lots of fluff between the facts. Wanted to purchase it but thank god I read the sample chapters on Google Books.
So that's it from me. Now I need to get started on my endorsement process. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.
For those of you who are taking the exam soon, good luck and all the best!
Comments
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E Double U
Member Posts: 2,233 ■■■■■■■■■■
grungeisevil wrote: »I Walked over to the receptionist, she didn't smile which made my heart sank a little until I saw the words "CONGRATULATIONS"
I had the same experience haha. Congratulations! What's next?Alphabet soup from (ISC)2, ISACA, GIAC, EC-Council, Microsoft, ITIL, Cisco, Scrum, CompTIA, AWS -
fullcrowmoon
Member Posts: 172
Congratulations!"It's so stimulating being your hat!"
"... but everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked." -
zentury
Member Posts: 17 ■□□□□□□□□□
Congratulations
This will definitely inspire most of us trying to read through multiple books.
Question:
How many days did you spend studying for this exam?
(Do you have prior knowledge of Info Sec?) -
FireFire
Member Posts: 25 ■□□□□□□□□□
Congrats!
Regarding the CCCure questions.
CISSP Scenario Based Questions Combo Part 1 and Part 2 (All 10 domains)
$49.99
CCCure Quiz Engine License for a single user
$49.95
And there is another one at https://www.freepracticetests.org/quiz/index.php?page=register
for 1 Year $129.99 USD (~$10.83 per month)
Which one are you talking about?
Thanks -
joshmadakor
Member Posts: 495 ■■■■□□□□□□
The test is definitely a b****, Congrats on the victory :>WGU B.S. Information Technology (Completed January 2013)
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grungeisevil
Member Posts: 39 ■■□□□□□□□□
E Double U wrote: »I had the same experience haha. Congratulations! What's next?
Thanks! Planning to obtain CISA. Hoping to jump into the IS Auditing realm. -
grungeisevil
Member Posts: 39 ■■□□□□□□□□
Thanks!
I registered the exam in late March. The first 2 months, I was studying off and on due to family and work commitment, however those first 2 months helped me understand the concepts for domains I've never worked before in my life.
What really made the difference was that I took a week off work, renewed my library membership (shame on me), and hit the book/questions/cbt for about 8-12 hours a day. Not sure if it works for everyone, but personally for me writing down the notes really helped me to understand and remember the facts. What sealed the deal was of course practice questions and also online references. When I had some troubles understanding IPSec, videos from YouTube helped.
I've been working in the IT industry for about 9 years, mainly focused on Infrastructure. The later part of my career required me to work with risk analysis, controls, and disaster recovery. -
grungeisevil
Member Posts: 39 ■■□□□□□□□□
Thanks! I took this one: CCCure Quiz Engine License for a single userCongrats!
Regarding the CCCure questions.
CISSP Scenario Based Questions Combo Part 1 and Part 2 (All 10 domains)
$49.99
CCCure Quiz Engine License for a single user
$49.95
And there is another one at https://www.freepracticetests.org/quiz/index.php?page=register
for 1 Year $129.99 USD (~$10.83 per month)
Which one are you talking about?
Thanks -
grungeisevil
Member Posts: 39 ■■□□□□□□□□
LOL! Thanks Josh. It definitely is! Told myself if I failed this, I might just consider taking other certifications first.joshmadakor wrote: »The test is definitely a b****, Congrats on the victory :>
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!nf0s3cure
Member Posts: 161 ■■□□□□□□□□
I wonder if the pass rates for CISSP have dropped dramatically! Meaning more money for ISC2 as people have to retake the test. Just trying to make it look lot more difficult I guess:) I wonder if this will change in the next few months. CISSP: A Global Force at 100,000 Strong - (ISC)2 Blog
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grungeisevil
Member Posts: 39 ■■□□□□□□□□
We can never figure ISC2 out I guess. Some people take the exam and say it was easy as hell, some take it and come out feeling what in the world just happened in there.
Somehow I felt that during the psycho analysis period, they churned out pretty bad a** questions and graded it way differently than they would have.!nf0s3cure wrote: »I wonder if the pass rates for CISSP have dropped dramatically! Meaning more money for ISC2 as people have to retake the test. Just trying to make it look lot more difficult I guess:) I wonder if this will change in the next few months. CISSP: A Global Force at 100,000 Strong - (ISC)2 Blog -
FireFire
Member Posts: 25 ■□□□□□□□□□
grungeisevil wrote: »Thanks! I took this one: CCCure Quiz Engine License for a single user
Nice, Thanks for your help. I am going to order the same.
