Passed CISSP on 05/14

sunnyajmera

Hey everyone, just wanted to share my exam preparation and exam experience with all those who are preparing for this exam:

Background: I have 12 years of experience in Identity & Access Management domain.

Time: Started my preparation for the exam in March,2018 and schedule the exam in mid of April. Originally, I scheduled the exam for 05/21 but decided to give it one week earlier as my brain couldn't take any more stress and reading. I was lucky to have one of my friend (who also passed on 05/07) preparing for this exam along with me, so that helped me a lot in discussion, clearing doubts and managing stress.

Resource: Sybex 7th edition, I was tempted to buy the 8th edition for reading new material but decided not to as 95% of the syllabus is same and good amount of information is easily available on google on new topics. Read Shon Harris 6th edition on topics which I found are not my strengths or based on the result of practice exams. I also read Eric conard 11th hour. I was also member of facebook group, studynotesandtheory, this group is amazing and very valuable.

Practice paper: Sybex practice paper, shon harris paper, tata McGraw-Hill exam papers

Videos: I also watched cybrary vidoes by Kelly, didn't get the time to watch all of them, but saw videos on my weaker topics. I also liked Sari green

Exam Day - while driving to the exam center, I listened to larry Greenblatt video on new exam pattern. I started strong but very slow, completed first 30 question in first hour and then next 70 questions in next 60minutes. Because I was running very behind on time, so had to skim through the questions very fast, tried my best to stick to larry advice of reading every question/answer twice. After 50question, my confidence level start going down, lot of unknown terms and confusing questions. On 100th question, the exam ended and I wasn't sure about the result. However, to my surprise, I passed. Thanks to ISC2 for making the exam 3 hours long and 150questions, I can't imagine sitting there for 6 hours under so much pressure.

My Advice: Read as much as you can from different source, the exam test every corner of your brain, don't stretch your preparation for more than 2.5 months and you can still use the sybex 7th edition for your preparation.

Hopefully, this will help someone.

roxer

Fantastic! Congratulations on the pass!!

nebula105

Awesome review, thanks for the tips!

bhanu_gopularam

Congratulations on clearing CISSP first attempt.

Would you like to give any advise/tips on how to remember things (network protocols, risk mgmt concepts, standards) before going to the exam? I keep forgetting things if I dont read for sometime.

bhanu_gopularam

Also how much percentage were you scoring in practice tests from Sybex, McGrawHill or Boson MOCK tests? Which topics were easy for you and which were hard while preparation for the exam.

averageguy72

Congrats!

sameoj

Congrats.

I have come to realize that the success trend or pattern to be: once the exam ends after answering 100 questions, you`re sure of passing but if you`re stretched beyond 100 questions, your chances of passing is very slim. Please correct me if I`m wrong.

Info_Sec_Wannabe

sunnyajmera : Nice job! Congrats on the pass!

bhanu_gopularam wrote: »

Also how much percentage were you scoring in practice tests from Sybex, McGrawHill or Boson MOCK tests? Which topics were easy for you and which were hard while preparation for the exam.

I think asking this won't be helpful for your preparation as you may have come from different backgrounds or experience. For instance, given the OP's expertise in IAM, he/she would find items related to access controls to be easy, but if you are a Network or GRC guy, chances are you would find communications or security and risk management easy. Even in the slim chance that you are also an IAM guy, there may still be differences in the environment and technologies that you are working with.

sameoj wrote: »

I have come to realize that the success trend or pattern to be: once the exam ends after answering 100 questions, you`re sure of passing but if you`re stretched beyond 100 questions, your chances of passing is very slim. Please correct me if I`m wrong.

I'm not certain on this and would rather refer you to what ISC2 has posted on its website - https://www.isc2.org/Certifications/CISSP/CISSP-CAT

sunnyajmera

bhanu_gopularam wrote: »

Congratulations on clearing CISSP first attempt.

Would you like to give any advise/tips on how to remember things (network protocols, risk mgmt concepts, standards) before going to the exam? I keep forgetting things if I dont read for sometime.

Tips - I would say, read multiple books to understand some of the important topics and the topics in which you feel you are weak. I read Shon Harris for my weaker topics, I made good use of board in my home office to draw and understand my weaker topics like Kerberos, SSL, TLS, PKI, Known Plaintext attacks etc. Although the goal is to pass the exam but its equally important if not more is to understand the concepts and different technologies.

sunnyajmera

bhanu_gopularam wrote: »

Also how much percentage were you scoring in practice tests from Sybex, McGrawHill or Boson MOCK tests? Which topics were easy for you and which were hard while preparation for the exam.

I was scoring in range of 70 - 80% in most of my exams, however in every test, there was one or two domain where i had less than 70% in terms of domain breakdown. As I started reading and understanding the hard topics, they started becoming the easy going forward. So, I will emphasis again on reading from multiple sources.

Advice - Do take time to relax (will make it less stressful), take a walk or do something you like and plan your study.

sunnyajmera

thank you and good luck to everyone

sunnyajmera

I am planning to take some time off from study and will then start preparing for my next goal, CCSP.