CISSP: Finally Taking It

JSimO

I am currently scheduled to take the CISSP boot camp and examination in early June. I've studied in the past with outdated books and review topics but nothing current. Does anyone have any pointers on what I should take and do before my course start date? I assume this site has some great links and guidance so I shall start navigating through. Suggestions are highly appreciated.

JDMurray

The key to making a boot camp worth your money is to study beforehand so you come across very little brand new material in the instruction. The boot camp should expand and reinforce the material you already know. If you see a lot of new topics and material in the presentation, you probably won't learn it that well in the fast-paced boot camp environment. Reading through the latest CISSP All-in-One books would be good prep.

Also, have a look at my CISSP blog articles.

slinuxuzer

JDMurray wrote: »

The key to making a boot camp worth your money is to study beforehand so you come across very little brand new material in the instruction. The boot camp should expand and reinforce the material you already know. If you see a lot of new topics and material in the presentation, you probably won't learn it that well in the fast-paced boot camp environment. Reading through the latest CISSP All-in-One books would be good prep.

Also, have a look at my CISSP blog articles.

+1 for this,

JSimO

Thanks for the link to your blogs Murray. I definitely took to your study plan blog. I am currently borrowing the CBK from a friend that took his a year back along with recorded web sessions on VTE. I have also joined cccure.org and heard many wonderful things regarding that site. So I will continue to keep reading little day by day and take some time off to self study before my long week course starts up in June. I will continue to keep you guys posted with new questions and opinions.

The crappy thing is I have another course to attend to after this one.

JSimO

Just thought I would share on how the whole experience went for me last week.
It was definitely one of the longest weeks/weekends of my life. Never have I studied that much in a short amount of time throughout my life. Understanding the domains and concepts were not difficult to me. My frustration was correctly identifying key words in the questions that wanted the BEST answer for the scenario.

I felt confident in what I was learning throughout the week but fatigue and constant repitetion was wearing me down. Waking up at 6am and literally going to class and studying til midnight afterwards played a huge toll on my mental and physical state. I definitely took Saturday afternoon/ early evening to relax and decompress. Saturday night consisted of light review and quick skimming through a few domains that I was struggling with. My weakness regarding domains were in Cryptography, BCDR and Application Developement Security.

Sunday aka Doomsday, was a good morning. Woke up nice and refreshed, eat a sausage, egg & cheese sandwich and checked out of my room. Once I arrived to the test center, that's when my nerves kicked in.

Sitting in a conference room waiting for registration and seating to be completed, I noticed my anxiety turning up a few notches. The first 20-30 questions I felt confident. Reading all the scenarios and being able to break them down by RECOGNIZING the actual question, helped me tremendously in the beginning. As I reached the half-way point, I started to lose all focus. I was finding myself read questions repeatedly in my head and not understanding what they were asking. Yes, I had a memory lock. Panic started kicking-in and then chaos. I tried multiple times to calm myself down and retain focus but the only thing I could focus on was one of the proctors causing distractions. I know they are getting paid to monitor but I know they are not getting paid to be a distraction. Reading books, playing with notes in-hand constantly walking back and forth as their legs were rubbing together causing a friction noise as a downhill skiier does with his poles everytime he goes around a flag. HORRIBLE.

Anyways, I do not feel confident in my examination score. If you are an individual getting ready to take this examination and have a hard time with outside distractions, I encourage you to bring ear plugs. I am not sure if that will help you answer more questions correctly, but it should help with staying focused on the test and not your surroundings. I completed in roughly a little over 4 hours. My mental block actually upset me and I did not go back through the questions. So hopefully here in a few weeks i can provide my results.

If anyone has any questions regarding the boot camp environment or questions on things I wish I would have done instead, feel free to ask.

JDMurray

Thanks for the very informative post! I've read reports from exam candidates describing others freaking out, but I don't believe that I've ever read a first-hand account of anyone having an anxiety attack during the exam. Were you allowed to get up and walk around? At least to walk to and from the bathroom would have allowed you a breather.

JSimO

JDMurray wrote: »

Thanks for the very informative post! I've read reports from exam candidates describing others freaking out, but I don't believe that I've ever read a first-hand account of anyone having an anxiety attack during the exam. Were you allowed to get up and walk around? At least to walk to and from the bathroom would have allowed you a breather.

We were technically allowed to move around but unfortunately one person could be up at a time. There were 22 individuals from my class that were taking the exam and every time I needed to get up, someone was excused before me. I was definitely having an internal break-down with everything. Not sure if it was due to the room going to a near-complete silence or just from the frustration of knowing I was only half-way through it.

JSimO

Well I thought I would give everyone an update. As I predicted, I failed the examination with a pathetic score of 604. Seems like some of the individuals in my class have responded with passing examinations. What is interesting is I was doing a lot of the explanations in the self study time we had.

Guess I need to work on my test taking skills and figure out what studying I plan on taking.

I was hoping for the best with just the boot camp but I guess I will need to go out and get some study materials like the Shon Harris All in one I keep hearing about.

JDMurray

Sorry to heard about your miss. Study your 3-5 worst domains (as indicated on the email) using the study materials most recommended by people here. Bootcamps are for people who mostly know the material, but feel they need to "brain cram" before taking the exam. Boot camps won't help most people learn and retain a lot of new material quickly.

Let us know when you are ready to retake it!