CISSP Assistance Needed

FromanSFG

So I was going thru the CISSP forum and I noticed a lot of people are getting thru the first pass of questions in about 2 or 3 hours. I've seen 4 in some areas. I took the test twice already and I am looking for some advise on how to get a better grasp of these questions so I can at least get thru the first pass in 3 maybe 4 hours. The last two times I did both exams in 5 hrs 30-40 mins. I need more time to go over these questions just in case I see something. I have studied about 2000 questions by signing up at cccure. To be honest, I not a fan of his questions because they are more technically focused than what the current version of the exam is. I am thinking about signing up for the Transcenders. If anyone has some feedback on those, please provide. Thank you in advance.

splash24

It's a tricky question Everyone's grasp and way of answering questions is different. I passed CISSP 2 weeks back and some tips. Let me state that it is my own experience and no way advocating the same approach

1.Move over the scenario based questions - I did a glance and marked an answer but kept it for review because I knew I could do better once I get the sense of whole CISSP exam, This saved me 45 minutes initially

2.Same with ALE,SLE calculation questions. I was good at them so I did quick calculations. If I had to apply every scenario they were testing I would have taken a long long time which is what happened during the second pass but at least I knew all questions were answered and I took my own sweet time

3.Do not get hung up on questions you are not sure about , Eliminate atleast 2 answers and best guess the final one, Atleast you have a 50-50 chance

4.Do not try to solve a single issue , A question might pose you with Firewalls , ACL’s , Access controls , Encryption what not and finally the answer will be a statement which can potentially cover everything

5.While regulation questions are straight forward do know that they are not common and same across the world

6.Most of the time is taken to reread , reread and reread the questions multiple times , This is required but try to break it into parts like “Customer is not worried about Disclosure” you should eliminate any answer which has confidentiality in it although it makes the solution stronger. ( If you think technically any encryption helps but that’s not what the ISC2 is asking you , They want you to analyze the current problem and answer )
Last but not the least , There are some question you wonder whether it’s actually a question or solution is given and they want you to find the problem.I believe I would tag them under the research part ( 25 questions )

I am sure others have many more inouts , Hope this helps.

cbkihong

FromanSFG wrote: »

I took the test twice already and I am looking for some advise on how to get a better grasp of these questions so I can at least get thru the first pass in 3 maybe 4 hours. The last two times I did both exams in 5 hrs 30-40 mins. I need more time to go over these questions just in case I see something.

I finished my exam with similar time, around 5:30h with 2 full passes. It was slow, but I see nothing wrong with it unless you are in a hurry for lunch or have some other engagement following the exam. With USD$600 paid, I was more concerned with passing, as I have set aside the whole day for the exam anyway.

So maybe you can explain more why you would like to shorten your first pass? If you did not pass, I think it is more important that you enhance on the accuracy by getting your concepts right with those domains you are not familiar with, rather than focusing on shorten the time needed for your first pass.

jt2929

Flag any questions you don't know right away or within the first 10-20 seconds. Then return to the flagged questions after you have completed your first pass. I would also check out the Total Tester software that comes with Shon Harris' AIO book.

gespenstern

I didn't bother with two passes, but I'm naturally slow, so it took me 5 hours to pass all questions for the first time, then I clicked through some I marked for review, but didn't finish it because was thinking "screw that".

Everybody has their own approach, I guess. I prefer to do things right and to full extent from the first approach.

kshahin

I am preparing, are you interested for the group study?

FromanSFG

splash24 wrote: »

It's a tricky question Everyone's grasp and way of answering questions is different. I passed CISSP 2 weeks back and some tips. Let me state that it is my own experience and no way advocating the same approach

1.Move over the scenario based questions - I did a glance and marked an answer but kept it for review because I knew I could do better once I get the sense of whole CISSP exam, This saved me 45 minutes initially

2.Same with ALE,SLE calculation questions. I was good at them so I did quick calculations. If I had to apply every scenario they were testing I would have taken a long long time which is what happened during the second pass but at least I knew all questions were answered and I took my own sweet time

3.Do not get hung up on questions you are not sure about , Eliminate atleast 2 answers and best guess the final one, Atleast you have a 50-50 chance

4.Do not try to solve a single issue , A question might pose you with Firewalls , ACL’s , Access controls , Encryption what not and finally the answer will be a statement which can potentially cover everything

5.While regulation questions are straight forward do know that they are not common and same across the world

6.Most of the time is taken to reread , reread and reread the questions multiple times , This is required but try to break it into parts like “Customer is not worried about Disclosure” you should eliminate any answer which has confidentiality in it although it makes the solution stronger. ( If you think technically any encryption helps but that’s not what the ISC2 is asking you , They want you to analyze the current problem and answer )
Last but not the least , There are some question you wonder whether it’s actually a question or solution is given and they want you to find the problem.I believe I would tag them under the research part ( 25 questions )

I am sure others have many more inouts , Hope this helps.

Thank you for the detail overview. I'm going to try this when I go thru my practice questions again. What practice questions did you use?

FromanSFG

Thank you for the responses so far. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to rush the exam. I was at question 130-40ish, 3 hour mark and I started to worry about whether if I had enough time to answer the rest of the questions along with the ones that I already marked. I was just wondering what other opinions are out there for a method.

Mike7

Different approach, same result.
Some people are fast readers, some want to be right the first time.

Others do not have the mental stamina. For my exam, I clicked submit at around 4 hour mark. Was sick with flu on that day so the strategy was to finish as many questions as possible in the first round and do multiple review rounds.

After 4 rounds of reviews, I was just physically and mentally exhausted. Eyes were also getting dry from all the fast reading despite having eye drops.

TheFORCE

You are stressing too much. You need to relax and just focus on the material. I don't understand why people take practice tests in the 2000+ questions. Read the syllabus of what % each section has on the exam. Focus on the ones you lack knowledge and review the ones you already know. Practice questions are not meant to be used as a study resource.

splash24

FromanSFG wrote: »

Thank you for the detail overview. I'm going to try this when I go thru my practice questions again. What practice questions did you use?

Shon Harris AIO,Studiscope,Transcendar ,CCCure,MC Hill,Eric Conrad - I did them all , If you can take EVERY question in Shon Harris book as a guide ( I mean research it completely using multiple sources ) it would help you immensely.

engneena

splash24 wrote: »

5.While regulation questions are straight forward do know that they are not common and same across the world

6.Most of the time is taken to reread , reread and reread the questions multiple times , This is required but try to break it into parts like “Customer is not worried about Disclosure” you should eliminate any answer which has confidentiality in it although it makes the solution stronger. ( If you think technically any encryption helps but that’s not what the ISC2 is asking you , They want you to analyze the current problem and answer )
Last but not the least , There are some question you wonder whether it’s actually a question or solution is given and they want you to find the problem.I believe I would tag them under the research part ( 25 questions )

Well said,, I will consider these two advises in my exam soon. Thank you

Eburon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b87yfzOwzxc

At times a bit long-winded, but it provides some really good insights on how to tackle "tricky" questions.