Passed CISSP - First attempt

mithrandirr

I passed my CISSP exam recently. I'm an infosec professional with experience mostly in network security.
I was thinking of CISSP certificate for nearly 7 years, initial aim was to first get associate certificate but could not properly start preparation.
One of my colleague shared forum link for refrence before starting CISSP preparation in 2015, after which I really understood the scope of CISSP.


I had intermediately tried to prepare for certification so Its not like I prepared continuously for 30-60 days, its on-off preparation for last two years.
I have outlined my approach on studying for the exam below.


1. Cybrary---> video's are helpfull but I found listing to mp3 very useful.
2. Shon haris ----> detailed and old but still helpfull
3. Book: Eleventh Hour CISSP® Study Guide, Third Edition by Eric Conrad---> it is brief, easy to read and can help you get idea about all the KB required for certification.
4. Book: Sybex CISSP Study Guide, Seventh Edition ---> this one is my favorite It covers lot of topics which are not mention in above material and which is explained in detail.
5. I used practive exam from Sybex/Wiley(Kind of easy) and syngress(little tough but very helpful and prepares mindset for exam)
6. I also refered combined notes and sunflower notes in last days. combined notes are life saver as I did not prepared noted inadvanced also flash card from sybex is really usefull.


I felt exam was little tough, it contained very few easy questions, it took me nearly 4:30 hrs to complete all questions and 30 mins to go through questions marked for review


Now I feel that I should have took little different approach while preparing for certification.


I will suggest that you first read combined notes before starting reading Sybex CISSP Study Guide, Seventh Edition as combined notes will prepare your self for all the detailed information comming in sybex and read sybex atleast 2 times, I read it only once and felt during exam that I should have read it twice as most questions reminded me of book material.
Also register for some prep exam solution, I could not do it due to time contrain but from what I understood while using syngress practive exam that I am not reading questions/option properly in hurry and due to that answering some questions wrong this was happened for obviuos/easy question very frequently.
I tried to control my self from doing so during exam and I thing it helped.
Also if you are doubtful of answer and this happend to me few times, just mark them for review and try to justify answer to yourself, this help keep you moral high during exam don't forget its 250 question exam and not like other 50-100 question certification exam. No question from **** will repeat so trust in yourself in Exam.
Also Think twice before changing the option during review of questions.
And Last think.
All the posts from you guys helped me a lot during this certificate preparation. Thanks you....

sameoj

Congrats