Passed 07-16-16 1st Attempt

Hi all,

I registered an account and main purpose of doing so and writing here is to give back, as this place has been giving me a lot in the past few months. I'd like to share about my journey and experience.

1. Background
- I have IT audit & compliance related work for the 7+ years. Got my CISA few years ago.

2. I started my search in this forum back in January, which gives me guidance / suggestions as what books to read, what videos to watch, etc. Here is the what I did:

Read Shawn Harris (only did 1/3 - gave up)
Read Sybex 7th edition book (took me almost 2 months - cover to cover)
Watched Cybrary videos
Practiced Sybex Practice exams
Read [FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]3rd edition Study Guide by Eric Conrad [/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]([/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]read [/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]twice - cover to cover[/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]) [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]Subscribe (one month before exam) and did practice in CCCure
Attended Bootcamp (by the way I did NOT read or used the ISC2 official book we received in the bootcamp at all - personally I feel it is the worst among the all the others I read)

3. About Exam
Exam is pretty strait forward (at least on my version, there are not many tricky or technical questions). A lot of managerial and scenario questions which require you refer to your experience and background knowledge to rule out the incorrect answers.
I have to say that I might have over studied, all the books I read and practice questions I did may not really be necessary to pass the exam, but it's all worth for the knowledge I gained from this journey.
Tip of taking the exam -- I mentally think this is 10 small exams, each have 25 questions -- this helped pace myself well and not get scared or mentally lost by the number of 250 questions. I took one break after 100 questions, and finished the rest without break. Flagged about 20 questions, and before submitting, quickly reviewed them without change a single one.

Good luck to everyone!

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Comments

Ertaz

Congrats! Now on to the endorsement!

cyberguypr

Congrats on the pass!

alfred06

nice congrats.

jayaleem

Congrats! Do you think just reading the Sybex cover to cover is enough, or do you recommend reading Conrad's book as well?

clulu

Hi Jayaleem,

For me, passing CISSP is one of my goals (the other one is to learn as much as I can from this process). Maybe it's overkill for the exam, but reading chapter by chapter from different books did give me a pretty good knowledge fundation.

So I'd say if you have plenty of time, go over both. Cornard book is shorter and easier to follow and understand. Again - exam is not very technical, but it does require you to understand the concept and apply to real cases. Good luck!

danny069

Two months is pretty good considering the Sybex 7th edition is as thick as a yellow pages phone book circa 1999 and prior (nowadays yellow pages are super thin) Congrats!

sameoj

Congrats

clintonia

Congrats!

webpriestess

Awesome! Congratulations

K-Med

Congrats!

clulu

danny069 wrote: »

Two months is pretty good considering the Sybex 7th edition is as thick as a yellow pages phone book circa 1999 and prior (nowadays yellow pages are super thin) Congrats!

LOL - Yeah, I gave up Shawn Harris book, so can't ban another book. Reading Sybex is not easy either, fall asleep few times in front of desk. Haven't had this "incidents" since college time...

clulu

Thanks everyone.

Hi @cyberguypr.
QQ - just curious that how did you add your profile pic?

DAVIS NGUYEN

Congrats!

havoc64

Congrats!

Nabsh07

Congrats... Do you mind sharing which Bootcamp you attended and how long after the bootcamp you took the exam?

clulu

Nabsh07 wrote: »

Congrats... Do you mind sharing which Bootcamp you attended and how long after the bootcamp you took the exam?

I attended the trainingcamp - I think it's held by isc2. I took the exam Sat afternoon, immediately after the 5 days training and couple hours review session on Sat morning.