CISA - preliminary pass 18-April

Resources - manual and QAE database

Started reading the manual in Jan and went through it 3 times. Most of this reading was during my daily train ride. Started using the QAE db in Feb and basically went through as many questions as I had time for each day. Regardless of how many questions I chose on each attempt, I always immediately chose the Missed last time seen option to go over what I just got wrong. Towards the end I started only choosing Trouble questions and after I got a handle on those I did a few 50 and 100 question attempts of all questions.

Test experience - Similar to the CISM, I felt like there was a lot of material that I had not read. I flagged a lot of questions for review before ending the exam and changed only 2 or 3 answers. It took me about 3 hours including my 20 minute break

Next up - GPEN if my request gets approved for SANS Amsterdam in May. I also submitted a request for Scrum training in June, but that is also pending approval. Until then I will work on my Dutch.

Good luck to anyone else working on this!

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Comments

xagreus

Nicely done!

Good luck with the GPEN (and the Dutch!).

Congrats

Congrats!

Well done dud!

Well done! Congrats!

BTW, I've heard that there are some double-taxing issues for Americans working abroad, is it true and to what extent?

E Double U

Thanks all!

@ gespenstern - The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion for 2017 is $102,100. Since I make less than that I will pay $0 federal income taxes. I still have to file, but will not owe. The people that do face double taxation are usually the ones that give up their US citizenship lol. Taxes are high enough here as it is. Luckily I get a 30% tax break because I have a highly skilled migrant (knowledge worker) visa otherwise they would take 49% of my paycheck.

H-bomb

Nice job!

gespenstern

E Double U wrote: »

Taxes are high enough here as it is. Luckily I get a 30% tax break because I have a highly skilled migrant (knowledge worker) visa otherwise they would take 49% of my paycheck.

Damn! I'm certainly not moving there!

Hope your visa status lasts for long enough to accumulate some wealth before they start this 49% theft scheme!

E Double U

@ gespenstern - I plan to stay on the migrant visa for years to come to continue getting that 30% off. I actually qualify to get Dutch citizenship in another year, but I'll pass to keep getting that tax break

Breaking news: At the moment the 30% tax ruling lasts up to 8 years, but starting in 2019 they want to lower that to 5. Ouch!

E Double U

Just received my official scaled score of 572

The Process of Auditing Information Systems: 541
Governance and Management of IT: 655
Information Systems Acquisition, Development and Implementation: 465
Information Systems Operations, Maintenance and Service Management: 534
Protection of Information Assets: 648