Passed CISSP - 1st Attempt

chuggington

Took it today and passed. From what I've read here I had a common experience:

-What are these terms? What are these questions? Totally lost in the sauce. I felt 100% good about ~10 questions. The rest of them were a toss-up between 2 of the options.

-About 20 questions in I figured I'd failed and, although still thinking through each question, I had already written it off as a failure. If I wasn't sure about an answer I just made a best guess and moved on.

-Test stopped at 100 questions. Then the machine froze and I didn't get results. I though perhaps I'd missed so many questions it wasn't possible for me to pass and it just stopped me there. Then I got the congratulations screen.

I studied:
1. The official study guide (Sybex 7th edition). Read it once cover-to-cover, 1 or 2 chapters a day. Answered the questions at the end of the chapter and made sure I understood the concepts.

2. Read the 11th hour study guide (the short one) the week before exam

3. Took the official practice tests for both the exam and the individual domains. The explanations for each question was helpful; approx 1000 total questions available to study.

4. Re-read about 20% of the official study guide covering the parts I wasn't feeling great about. Finished brushing up on the last re-read chapter last night. Spend this morning brushing up on ports, protocols, models etc etc.

90% of my study was out of the official book and the official practice tests. How they managed to stump me with dozens of terms I hadn't read yet in the book if a mystery to me.

I've done way more managerial type IT oversight in recent years rather than in the weeds technical stuff. I believe that helped me in thinking through the answers and finding that crucial "best" answer.

TheRedBar0n

Well done! Congrats!