Passed my CISSP exam this morning

snowchick7669 · March 2018

Hi all,

I haven’t posted for a while on here, but thought I’d drop a note regarding my CISSP exam as I found this thread very helpful over the past few months. The exam was a tough one and I was super relieved when I got my “Congratulations” after 100 questions. I did think I was failing like a few others have mentioned and I was only really comfortable with 5-8 questions out of the 100. It really does test your ability to apply the concepts/fundamentals and think logically with the business always in the back of your mind.

I used the process of elimination for the answers and made sure I understood what they were actually asking and also that I could explain why the other answers were wrong and why I thought the one I’d chosen was right.

I’ve been working directly within Info Sec for 3 years and I’m currently an IT Security Officer (I found my experience definitely was helpful). I started studying back in September, but only really knuckled down around the middle of January due to personal/work chaos getting in the way last year.

Resources:

Sybex book (read once cover to cover and then reviewed some areas I struggled with). Would definitely recommend and if I had time I would have read this again.

11th hour book (read once a few days before my exam). Again, I would have read it again if possible.

Watched the Cybrary videos. Highly recommend this and I would probably watch in tandem with the chapters you’re doing in the book to really gel everything together.

Sunflower PDF. Used this a few days before the exam and ensured I could verbally explain all of the terms as I was reading through.

6 day boot camp. I used this as more of a refresher and I honestly don’t think it’s required if you have a solid study plan. Only did this because Work paid for it.

Larry Greenblat 2018 exam tips. Would recommend watching this video

Practice Questions:

I did multiple different practice tests including Sybex, the official apps for iPhone, etc and I honestly would recommend the Boson ones if you can afford. They’re quite technical, but give you an idea of the level of understand you should have. The official CISSP test app was quite good as a refresher. In saying that, I’m not really sure any practice test can really give you an idea of the exam style unlike some other certs I’ve done.

It’s definitely a doable exam, but you really do need to understand the concepts and how they apply. It’s more of a problem solving exam.

Hope this helps! Apologies for any formatting issues or spelling mistakes I’m currently on my phone (and horizontal ha).