Over the past 3 months I've taken and passed all three
exams. For the CCISO, I took a class offered by EC Council, and for the CISSP
and CISM I self studied for a few weeks before the exams. I used various online
tools and wanted to share my experience. BTW - I have 30+ years of experience so don't try what I did if you're new to cybersecurity.
CISSP
- ITExams - my wife
recommended because she used for ServiceNow admin/dev exams. Not valuable
for the CISSP exam. Questions were okay, but about 1/3 of the answers
provided were incorrect and I mean obviously incorrect. I began to suspect
that someone was trying to make sure that if someone only used the test
bank to study they would fail the exam. Not recommended for the CISSP exam.
- DestCert
(app on iPhone) - questions were TOUGH, harder than the ones on the exam.
I didn't note any incorrect answers. Quickly got frustrated and didn’t use
extensively. I have a friend studying
for the exam and he loves it. Not
for me but maybe for you?
- PocketPrep
(app on iPhone) - questions were too easy, but every answer contained
citations where you could validate the answer and learn more.
- Boson - Best prep resource
for the CISSP. Questions were the right difficulty, answers were correct.
Guarantee that if you pass their exams, you'll pass the test or your money
back. My favorite of all the tools I used for the CISSP.
- Certmike - Didn't use
anything but his CISSP exam. It was a great test exam, but only one exam.
If you can pass his exam, you will probably pass the CISSP exam (he wrote
the official training guide). Use late in your prep for best results. Mike also has extensive training available.
- Newstone
Test Prep - purchased book for CISSP which included an extensive test
bank. Started out great until I figured out that the longest answer was
always the correct answer. After that it was worthless.
CISM
- PocketPrep
- My favorite prep tool for the CISM. Questions were much better than
their CISSP questions and were a fair representation of what the test is
like. Their Level Up quizzes start out easy and get much more difficult at
the higher levels - I started out getting every question right and by the
higher levels I was lucky to get 6 out of 10 answers correct. If I had one
tool for CISM prep this would be it. Highly recommended.
- DestCert
- not as valuable for the CISM exam. Questions were really easy and no
references for the answers. Strange that their CISSP content was great but
their CISM content was weak.
- SkillCertPro - Huge
test bank. Started out pretty good, but after I got to the middle of the
test bank quality started declining. Started noticing obviously wrong
answers and very poorly worded questions. They claim if you can get 85% on
their test exams, you'll pass the real exam. Maybe, but I almost never got
over 85% and passed the exam just fine. Meh, would probably not use again
unless I found out it's better for other exams (which it could be).
For the CCISO, I took the EC Council course and it was a
great course, BUT, I didn't feel like the content of the course matched up very
well with what was on the exam - like maybe 50% of it did. If I didn't have 30+
years experience in IT and a PMP, I probably wouldn't have passed the exam just
based on the content of the course. Still - I thought it was a worthwhile
course and recommend it to any aspiring CISO.
Just my 2 cents, YMMV and all that.
