CISSP Pass!
Hi Everyone,
I passed my CISSP on the first attempt last week and thought I'd share my experience as I have found other people's posts to be very helpful.
To cover the traditional stuff - I took about 4 hours over the exam, took one break (it wasn't easy to take breaks where I was) and used all of the same resources as everyone else. The Sybex book was what I found most useful but cross referenced to the All-In-One book more and more as I got in deeper.
Going in to the exam I really didn't know what to expect because there seemed to be a general consensus that the questions were wordy, lengthy and difficult to comprehend, nothing like any of the tests. I have to say that wasn't my experience at all. I thought the questions were very much like the Sybex ones (I used online resource and the book of questions). That said, there was a lot of stuff that I hadn't even heard of. I got a lot of questions on networking, some of it detailed technical very low level. The whole 'mile wide, inch deep' cliché really wasn't true in my case, more like 'mile wide, mile deep'! I was sure that I'd failed and kept thinking on how I could approach my studying differently for the retake - I didn't come up with a good answer and I'm so happy to day that I passed and don't have to worry!
All that being said, what saved me was the depth of my studying. Because you have to learn the principles and reasoning that underpin security, these can be applied to the questions and I'm sure that's what helped me get through. I took over 6 months to study for the exam, went through the books and videos several times, took lots of notes, drew from many resources. I come from a server/network infrastructure background and I'm a much better security professional for having studied like I did. I'd recommend CISSP to anyone moving from a techie to a managerial mind set.
Good luck to everyone else currently studying.
I passed my CISSP on the first attempt last week and thought I'd share my experience as I have found other people's posts to be very helpful.
To cover the traditional stuff - I took about 4 hours over the exam, took one break (it wasn't easy to take breaks where I was) and used all of the same resources as everyone else. The Sybex book was what I found most useful but cross referenced to the All-In-One book more and more as I got in deeper.
Going in to the exam I really didn't know what to expect because there seemed to be a general consensus that the questions were wordy, lengthy and difficult to comprehend, nothing like any of the tests. I have to say that wasn't my experience at all. I thought the questions were very much like the Sybex ones (I used online resource and the book of questions). That said, there was a lot of stuff that I hadn't even heard of. I got a lot of questions on networking, some of it detailed technical very low level. The whole 'mile wide, inch deep' cliché really wasn't true in my case, more like 'mile wide, mile deep'! I was sure that I'd failed and kept thinking on how I could approach my studying differently for the retake - I didn't come up with a good answer and I'm so happy to day that I passed and don't have to worry!
All that being said, what saved me was the depth of my studying. Because you have to learn the principles and reasoning that underpin security, these can be applied to the questions and I'm sure that's what helped me get through. I took over 6 months to study for the exam, went through the books and videos several times, took lots of notes, drew from many resources. I come from a server/network infrastructure background and I'm a much better security professional for having studied like I did. I'd recommend CISSP to anyone moving from a techie to a managerial mind set.
Good luck to everyone else currently studying.
Comments
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SteveLavoie
Member Posts: 1,133 ■■■■■■■■■□
Going in to the exam I really didn't know what to expect because there seemed to be a general consensus that the questions were wordy, lengthy and difficult to comprehend, nothing like any of the tests. I have to say that wasn't my experience at all. I thought the questions were very much like the Sybex ones (I used online resource and the book of questions). That said, there was a lot of stuff that I hadn't even heard of. I got a lot of questions on networking, some of it detailed technical very low level. The whole 'mile wide, inch deep' cliché really wasn't true in my case, more like 'mile wide, mile deep'! I was sure that I'd failed and kept thinking on how I could approach my studying differently for the retake - I didn't come up with a good answer and I'm so happy to day that I passed and don't have to worry!
First, congratulation for the pass!
Second, I wrote the test on Nov 16th, I was afraid of the level of wordiness/lenght of the questions, but as you it wasnt my experience at all. I am not even an english native (my bad english grammar should let you guess it) and the while question were using subtle sometime, it was on the same level as the ISC2 practice exam, or Sybex practice test. Like you I got a few very deep question, but it could be some of the 25 demo question. Exam is a mile wide of course, that make it long to study, but I didnt found it overly hard. It is an honest exam based on the exam outline.
Now, I am working on my CCSP ? What is your next goal ? -
jhearn
Member Posts: 12 ■□□□□□□□□□
SteveLavoie wrote: »Now, I am working on my CCSP ? What is your next goal ?
My next goal is to enjoy not spending all my free time studying! My husband is under strict instructions to give me a good talking to if I start thinking about more certifications! Good luck with your CCSP.
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GettingThereSoon
Member Posts: 19 ■■□□□□□□□□
SteveLavoie wrote: »First, congratulation for the pass!
...Now, I am working on my CCSP ? What is your next goal ?
Hi Steve, same goal here. I got 3 books (CBK, Sybex, AIO) instead of 2 books for CISSP/CSA+.
I found the real test questions very clear by bold-faced key words (NOT, ...). Scenario questions were ok, not too wordy. As Steve said, some super hard questions probably belong to 25 demos.
