Hello All
I passed the CISSP exam today in my first attempt.
What a grueling 6 hours today with a creepy feeling that I was not doing well, only to see a "Congratulations" note as I stepped out of the test center. I have done several certifications in the past and even the PMP certification was a breeze to me. This security certification had me on my toes since the day I started studying, but it is all worth the investment of energy and time. I should say it was an year long journey and more rigorous towards the last two months. I started studying last year and then kept postponing due to other priorities, then the exam format changed, had to wait for the official study guides to be released, took up studying again this year from scratch as a new year resolution, again took a 2 month break between March and April, and started to study more seriously from May.
My main source of studies were the following:
1) CISSP Study Guide by Eric Conard - I read this first to help me get a good feel about the topics. But this book alone is not not sufficient for the exam.
2) AIO - Shon Harris. I read this cover to cover, but requires a lot of patience. This book covered most of the topics needed for the exam.
3) Sybex - Glimpsed through this once to fill in gaps and took the chapter quizzes. Filled in the gaps with incorrect answers. I was only scoring 70% on most chapters after glimpsing through the contents and reading 1 and 2 thoroughly. It was a little discouraging.
4) Official Guide - Did the chapter quizzes only. Was scoring 75% to 80% in most domains.
5) CCCure - Tried quizzes here and filled in more gaps. The exam questions were pretty close to CCCure from my experience. I was scoring only 70% initially and after consistently studing and attempting only UNATTEMPTED questions everytime, I hit a 89% mark toward the exam date.
6) Transcender - Very tough and confusing (sometimes incorrect too) questions, but helped me to train my brain to read obscure sentences and stay. I was only scoring 68 to 75% on these tests. I did not take a 250 question set exam, but instead took domain quizzes. My objective was to assess my weakest domain, but I guess with this product, pretty much I was weak in all the domains
... But, it helped me immensely to fill my gaps.
Below are my scores from mock tests in the order I attempted. Hope this will help people who are scoring similar to mine assess where they stand.
CISSP for Dummies Mock Exam
78%
Eric 1
82%
Eric 2
70%
MH1
81%
MH2
65%
CCCure - Round 1 (200 questions each time)
85%, 75%, 83%, 78%, 81%
Tanscender (all domains)
68 - 75%
Total Tester
84%, 82%
Sybex 1
77%, 70%, 76%, 77%
CCCure - round 2
89%, 81%, 89%, 80%
As it has been said here many times, this is a management exam. You will not see questions that are direct or technical. The concepts must be understood in order to get the answers nailed down. More than one answer will seem correct on the actual exam. The sample tests should help you identify your gaps and study better, but the actual exam, in my opinion, was more close to Sybex and CCCure.
The exam is far more tactical. So, use the results from your mock tests to fill in your gaps. In the actual exam, every single question looked familiar to me and there were no surprises with regards to the content. However, reading the questions, digesting the information and identifying the correct choice was the main challenge. The resources I have listed pretty much cover the vast range of topics you must be familiar with.
Best,
Prithi Narasimhan
