Passed CISSP on 05/14
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.
