I just got done with my exam today. Overall, my experience with PSI was good. I took mine at a PSI center in New Jersey, and I must say that the staffs were very friendly and professional. The exam center was nice and quiet, so I could concentrate on my exam. I got an issue with the computer there at first. At first, the exam kicked me out (I had to log back in) once every six minutes. I was not happy, and I kept wondering why the connection to the ISACA server was that bad. However, I figured out how to fix the issue. Indeed, the clock in my computer ran 5 minutes faster than the normal clock, and I figured it was the reason why the test kept timing out on me. Hence, I updated the clock myself, and it did the trick to keep the exam up. So, just a tip if you find yourself in a similar situation.
Back to exam experience, imo CISA was the hardest exam I ever did. I even put I strongly disagreed that the exam questions were clear and concise in the survey at the end. Questions on the real exam were vague like usual. I got a lot of similar questions to the ones in the QAE. I marked a lot questions for review, and I changed about 10 of them. In the end, my eyes got so blurry, and I was so hungry that I could not concentrate. I still managed to review all questions at least twice. I could not be happier when I saw that I passed because I would not want to take this *not so good exam* again.
I studied for about 4 hours every day last May right after I was done with grad school. Before that, back in January, I started reading the study guide by sybex. I could not remember much. I read through the manuals twice, once back in March and once during the review period last month. I also used the all in one book (1st tho, it is old but still useful). I think the important part about prepping for the exam was taking a lot practice tests. I did all 600 questions from sybex, 400 from the all in one (tip: you can google the totalsem cisa exam for free tests), and I also finished all 1000 questions from ISACA with a total of 1700 questions attempted. For a new set of 100 questions, I only got around 70s. Like others have said, it was important to understand the concepts. Thanks a lot to those who took other exams before me and gave me tips.
Now on to the CISM on June 23rd. I will write my review about my experience on that as well
