CISSP Pass Attempt #1
I had yesterday my 6 hour CISSP exam and I'm so grateful to have passed. Thank you good!!!
I've got really bad headaches starting at 4 in the morning and today (the next day) I have still have some headache.
So this was really a fight.
I assume my preparation has somehow helped to get passed, however during the whole exam I had a lot of doubts.
Right after starting I got the next surprise. I've asked before to have the exam in German language, because I've heard you get the questions in English and in addition there is a German translation available. However I got the questions in German (often very innovative translated) and got a button to get the English translation.
In my test exams I managed to get all 250 questions answered in approx. 2 hours.
Yesterday in the exam I required 5 hours to answer and check my flagged questions. The last hour of the exam I spent by checking again around 100 Questions. I took a couple of short breaks during the exam to eat and drink and take in more painkiller.
This is how I prepared:
Books:
"Cissp Boxed Set 2015 Common Body of Knowledge Edition" from Shon Harris // Not sure, if this is really up-to-date
Eleventh Hour CISSP: Study Guide from Eric Conrad and Seth Misenar // Scratching only at the surface
Videos:
Youtube around 60 different CISSP Practise Questions of the Day from IT Dojo videos // Quite good and make you think
Youtube CISSP Complete Test Prep & **** Sheet from Joseph Delgadillo (https://youtu.be/arkIFPbK3lo)
Online/Offline tester:
Offline Total Tester as coming for free with the Shon Harris book // Outdated
Offline Android App ISC2 CISSP Official Tests (6,99 €) // OK, however quite limited set of questions
Online Shon Harris CISSP Exam Simulator (https://www.humanelementsecurity.com) (99$) // Outdated, nice for history lessons
Online https://www.skillset.com/ // Managed to get to 99% ready. Questions are however ways to easy and no comparison with exam questions. Gamification concept keeps you doing more and more questions here.
Online Transcender test from Cybrary.it (42$) // Useful - Done all test exams + many, many 50 question tests
Online https://www.mhprofessionalresources.com//sites/CISSPExams/exam.php?id=Telecommunications // OK, however outdated
Other useful stuff:
Mindmaps CISSP | MindCert.com – Mind Mapping for Certifications – Cisco CCIE CISSP CEH
**** Sheet Sunflower version 2.0 https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/dc6afa_fc8dba86e57a4f3cb9aaf66aff6f9d22.pdf
18 different slide sets from Karthikeyan Dhayalan https://de.slideshare.net/KarthikeyanDhayalan1?utm_campaign=profiletracking&utm_medium=sssite&utm_source=ssslideview
If I had been clever and have found this forum earlier in my preparation, I might have chosen different book for study and different online test tool. I noticed quite early, that videos are for me not the most effective way to learn. Better had been the transcender questions and the explanation for the correct answer there. Always think what makes the answer to a correct answer! The transcender questions are as well slightly more easy than the exam questions. E.g. transcender helps you quite often in the way how the questions are formulated. E.g. check in the questions for singular/plural. If you see here that plural must be in the answer you can sort out often more than 50% of the possible answers. That has unfortunately not the case in the exam.
The recommendations from Joseph Delgadillo mentioned on slide 71 were very good to calm my very nervous mind:
* Relax - It's not hard
* Take breaks - if you have to take the 6 hours they give you, you are not ready
* Answer like a stuffed-shirt, not a super smart engineer
* Stay positive
* Eat right, get a good night sleep and pass!
I've got really bad headaches starting at 4 in the morning and today (the next day) I have still have some headache.
So this was really a fight.
I assume my preparation has somehow helped to get passed, however during the whole exam I had a lot of doubts.
Right after starting I got the next surprise. I've asked before to have the exam in German language, because I've heard you get the questions in English and in addition there is a German translation available. However I got the questions in German (often very innovative translated) and got a button to get the English translation.
In my test exams I managed to get all 250 questions answered in approx. 2 hours.
Yesterday in the exam I required 5 hours to answer and check my flagged questions. The last hour of the exam I spent by checking again around 100 Questions. I took a couple of short breaks during the exam to eat and drink and take in more painkiller.
This is how I prepared:
Books:
"Cissp Boxed Set 2015 Common Body of Knowledge Edition" from Shon Harris // Not sure, if this is really up-to-date
Eleventh Hour CISSP: Study Guide from Eric Conrad and Seth Misenar // Scratching only at the surface
Videos:
Youtube around 60 different CISSP Practise Questions of the Day from IT Dojo videos // Quite good and make you think
Youtube CISSP Complete Test Prep & **** Sheet from Joseph Delgadillo (https://youtu.be/arkIFPbK3lo)
Online/Offline tester:
Offline Total Tester as coming for free with the Shon Harris book // Outdated
Offline Android App ISC2 CISSP Official Tests (6,99 €) // OK, however quite limited set of questions
Online Shon Harris CISSP Exam Simulator (https://www.humanelementsecurity.com) (99$) // Outdated, nice for history lessons
Online https://www.skillset.com/ // Managed to get to 99% ready. Questions are however ways to easy and no comparison with exam questions. Gamification concept keeps you doing more and more questions here.
Online Transcender test from Cybrary.it (42$) // Useful - Done all test exams + many, many 50 question tests
Online https://www.mhprofessionalresources.com//sites/CISSPExams/exam.php?id=Telecommunications // OK, however outdated
Other useful stuff:
Mindmaps CISSP | MindCert.com – Mind Mapping for Certifications – Cisco CCIE CISSP CEH
**** Sheet Sunflower version 2.0 https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/dc6afa_fc8dba86e57a4f3cb9aaf66aff6f9d22.pdf
18 different slide sets from Karthikeyan Dhayalan https://de.slideshare.net/KarthikeyanDhayalan1?utm_campaign=profiletracking&utm_medium=sssite&utm_source=ssslideview
If I had been clever and have found this forum earlier in my preparation, I might have chosen different book for study and different online test tool. I noticed quite early, that videos are for me not the most effective way to learn. Better had been the transcender questions and the explanation for the correct answer there. Always think what makes the answer to a correct answer! The transcender questions are as well slightly more easy than the exam questions. E.g. transcender helps you quite often in the way how the questions are formulated. E.g. check in the questions for singular/plural. If you see here that plural must be in the answer you can sort out often more than 50% of the possible answers. That has unfortunately not the case in the exam.
The recommendations from Joseph Delgadillo mentioned on slide 71 were very good to calm my very nervous mind:
* Relax - It's not hard
* Take breaks - if you have to take the 6 hours they give you, you are not ready
* Answer like a stuffed-shirt, not a super smart engineer
* Stay positive
* Eat right, get a good night sleep and pass!
Comments
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averageguy72
Member Posts: 323 ■■■■□□□□□□
Congrats!CISSP / CCSP / CCSK / CRISC / CISM / CISA / CASP / Security+ / Network+ / A+ / CEH / eNDP / AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty / AWS Certified Security - Specialty / AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional / AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional / AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate / AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate / AWS Certified Developer - Associate / AWS Cloud Practitioner -
za3bour
Member Posts: 1,062 ■■■■□□□□□□
Congratulations.
What do you mean by this sentence "* Answer like a stuffed-shirt, not a super smart engineer"
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Info_Sec_Wannabe
Member Posts: 428 ■■■■□□□□□□
Congratulations!
Great way to end the year. X year plan: (20XX) OSCP [ ], CCSP [ ] -
DZA_
Member Posts: 467 ■■■■■■■□□□
Congratulations for passing the exam! You have a thorough write up for all CISSP candidates. -
timost
Registered Users Posts: 2 ■□□□□□□□□□
I means you should put yourself more into the mindset of a manager and not so much into the mindset of an engineer.
