Failed CISSP with a 696

makbat

As the subject states I failed the CISSP with a 696. Has anyone ever asked for the exam to be re-evaluated and if so has anyone ever had their score changed?

Respectfully;
Mark K.

spiderjericho

Sorry to hear. You were right at the cusp. I'm not sure what benefit of re-evaluating the exam will provide. I'd just strengthen your weak areas and make sure you're solid in the other areas.

JDMurray

It costs nothing to ask for a recount and requires no work on your part, so go for it. You have nothing to loose. The information to contact the (ISC)2 is on the exam results email sent to you.

makbat

Hey thanks for the replies. I was wondering if you ever heard of anyone actually doing this and getting their test score reviewed from failed to passed?

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Wescott

People have asked;but I don't know of any that have been changed, unless they found an error in their processing.

I passed it in December. It is a requirement for our jobs.

I used the Shon Harris dvd's and I go the ISC Student Review book:

The Official (ISC)2 CISSP CBK Review Seminar Student Handbook; Version 9.0

it was excellent and an easier read.

Good luck on the re-take.

surinb

Never heard of a re-evaluation by somebody but if ISC2 have a process (And it doesn't cost you much) no harm in going for it.
Hope things will turn out for your best else good luck with the re-take.

For me Shon Harris rules.

deberg_1990

spiderjericho wrote: »

Sorry to hear. You were right at the cusp. I'm not sure what benefit of re-evaluating the exam will provide. I'd just strengthen your weak areas and make sure you're solid in the other areas.

I failed with a 668 last year. Yes, they send you the email listing your weak areas, but its really not much use is it since the tests is weighted in certain areas and questions.

User Name

I'd advise you to ask for a rescore since the cost associated with this process is low ($50). However, per ISC2 Member Services, rarely do score results change after a manual rescore. Results generally take several weeks.

Good Luck. Keep us posted.

Paladin

Wescott wrote: »

People have asked;but I don't know of any that have been changed, unless they found an error in their processing.

I passed it in December. It is a requirement for our jobs.

I used the Shon Harris dvd's and I go the ISC Student Review book:

The Official (ISC)2 CISSP CBK Review Seminar Student Handbook; Version 9.0

it was excellent and an easier read.

Good luck on the re-take.

Hello.

I used these sources when I took and passed the CISSP:

Shon Harris' Book
Roberta Bragg's Book
(ISC)2 Gold CISSP Prep Book
NIST SP 800 Series (http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html)

I am of the opinion that you cannot do an adequate job preparing simply from one source.

Cheers!

Paladin
ISMS Architect and Data Center Manager

Paladin

makbat wrote: »

As the subject states I failed the CISSP with a 696. Has anyone ever asked for the exam to be re-evaluated and if so has anyone ever had their score changed?

Respectfully;
Mark K.

Mark,

I doubt if they will change your score.

My advice:

1) Schedule the exam again as quickly as possile.

2) Use these resources for your study regimine:
Shon Harris' Book
Roberta Bragg's Book
(ISC)2 Gold CISSP Prep Book
NIST SP 800 Series (http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html)

I am of the opinion that you cannot do an adequate job preparing simply from one source.

3) Taking the exam:

• Once you are in the exam room, all communication is done by raising your hand and getting a proctor’s attention. Then the verbal communication is done in a whisper.
• You will probably be in a room with about 70 people, and 95% will be sitting for the 6-hour CISSP exam
• The test is in a paper booklet that is sealed, similar to the old ACT and SAT tests
• When the main exam proctor instructs you to start, you take a pencil, slide it in the booklet and break the seal
• Take it Backward, starting at question 250.
  Each question is multiple choice style, and the answer will be A, B, C, or D
• You should circle the letter that corresponded to your answer for each question in the booklet
• Read each question three times at least
• You can automatically rule out two choices on most questions.
  If you are confused or have doubts, write a question mark by the question number and move on
• When you have answered all questions and are confident that you did your best, take the sore sheet and carefully mark your answers from the booklet into the computer-graded score sheet
• After filling out the score sheet, double check that the answers in your score sheet are the same as what you marked in your test booklet
• Erase errors carefully, because the questions that have multiple answers are wrong.
• Questions with no answers or incorrect answers are also wrong
• Pace yourself – you get six hours, so you need to be answering about 42 questions per hour.

Good Luck!

Cheers!

Paladin
ISMS Architect and Data Center Manager

ibcritn

Paladin wrote: »

Hello.

I used these sources when I took and passed the CISSP:

Shon Harris' Book
Roberta Bragg's Book
(ISC)2 Gold CISSP Prep Book
NIST SP 800 Series (http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsSPs.html)

I am of the opinion that you cannot do an adequate job preparing simply from one source.

Cheers!

Paladin
ISMS Architect and Data Center Manager

Great advice.

I concur, you really can't prepare very well w/o several sources. I know I used 3 different video series with a few books/study guides. The sources Paladin posted are great.

makbat

Hello Everyone:

Here is an update. I did ask for a rescore ($50.00). I remembered that there was a couple of answers where the pencil almost went entirely through the exam. This was caused by the thick table cloth on the exam tables. In fact the whole class actually removed all the table clothes from the exam tables becuase we were having the same problem.

In response to Paladin statement:
Questions with no answers or incorrect answers are also wrong

Wrong meaning they do not take away from your score? They are just not counted. Correct? In other words: If the test was 10 questions and you answered 8 correctly. 1 In-correctly and left 1 blank. Your total score would be based soley on the 8 you got right.

Or did I not undersand the test proctor correctly?

Makbat

JDMurray

makbat wrote: »

Here is an update. I did ask for a rescore ($50.00).

Hmmm...requesting an exam score reassessment once was FOC. The (ISC)2 probably started charging when they moved to a new exam management company.

makbat wrote: »

I remembered that there was a couple of answers where the pencil almost went entirely through the exam. This was caused by the thick table cloth on the exam tables. In fact the whole class actually removed all the table clothes from the exam tables because we were having the same problem.

Yes, I remember some people folding back the table cloths on their tables in my exam too.

makbat wrote: »

If the test was 10 questions and you answered 8 correctly. 1 In-correctly and left 1 blank.
Your total score would be based soley on the 8 you got right.

If that were the case, you would always score 100% regardless of the number of items you didn't answer or answered incorrectly.

The exam score is always based on the total number of items on the exam. Items that were not answered are considered incorrect because "no answer" is not the correct answer. You can't make the exam shorter by not answering items.

User Name

BTW, the $50 fee is refunded should your score change after being rescored.

Keep us posted.

makbat

The subject says it all. I am out another 50.00 bucks. I have a nagging question from the exam that I can't seem to find in any of my study material and was hoping that one of you can point me in the right direction. The question was in two parts and started off something that like this:

Developers have been making changes to code on production systems and the systems have started to experience failures.

It then went on to ask how implementing CCM would ???

And that is all I can remember.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Makbat

JDMurray

Well, first of all, you never make changes on a production system until the changes have been thoroughly tested on a staging system. That being said, a CMS (Change Management System) allows you to rollback software components to a previous good release (think restore points in Windows and save points in database transactions), and also to compare different revisions of code to determine what what change were made when and by whom (think document markups and file archiving to preserve the history of changes made to a word processing document).

Important Note: Please do not ask questions about actual cert exam content on TE. Asking about the subject matter is fine, but not about individual items you saw on an actual exam.

azjag

I know of one or two people on TE that have requested a rescore of the CISSP exam. Neither of them passed the second time around either. One scored a 690 and the other scored a 685 I believe. If you don't try you will never know. I think the $50 fee is more of a deterrent than anything else. Then again, I’m not privy to the process involved in rescoring a test.

JDMurray

azjag wrote: »

Then again, I’m not privy to the process involved in rescoring a test.

Well, I hope not! Thanks to ISO 17024 requirements, you are now firmly on the education side of the house and thoroughly fire-walled from the exam writing/proctoring/scoring side of things at the (ISC)2.

User Name

Did your score change after being rescored?

Problem is there is no transparency in ISC's grading. You have to take their word for it sort of speak, and many folks are incredulous when they are informed they have failed. I've known folks who admittedly were not prepared for the exam but had taken the ISC seminar and passed; and other folks who were qualified to achieve a high score and failed. The majority of those who pass the CISSP have taken ISC's course or bought the study materials. ISC confirms this point. I find this very, very interesting. If one were permitted to verify some of the questions answered incorrectly it would go a long way to evaporate the distrust folks have for the grading procedures at ISC (grading fiasco of last year not withstanding).

Take the exam again if you must, but have an employer hopefully pay for the exam (and the official study guide). Seems simply being on the list of customers who bought the study guide is advantageous.
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JDMurray

User Name wrote: »

Seems simply being on the list of customers who bought the study guide is advantageous.

Nope, not at all. The (ISC)2 has two sides of its business: the exam side and the education side. Despite being part of the same business organization, these two sides are fire-walled from each other. Although I can't say for sure, it's very likely that the exam side can't obtain the list from the educational side of people who purchased (ISC)2 training materials, and visa versa.

User Name

In theory, this is true. However, while not possible to obtain detailed exam results from any other organization (CompTIA, Microsoft, CISCO) either, ISC2 seems to garner more speculation and suspicion of the CISSP exam results than would seem expected. Perhaps coincidence, perhaps not, ISC2 official prep candidates seem to pass regardless of mastery of the material. Firewalls do have holes. ISC2 is eager and willing to sell a variety of study materials as this is their core business. Any effort toward this goal is the ultimate strategy for ISC2.

core22

I've taken both ISC2 official prep, as well as non, and the ISC2 prep changes your point of view. The official ISC2 prep/instructor drilled into us that all scenarios should be addressed from a management point of view, and that helped me on questions I was having a hard time with. How well it helped, who knows - I've not received my results yet.

Regarding the test designers and the official instructors, it was explained to us comparatively to a Chinese wall model.

JDMurray

I'm thinking that the (ISC)2 has the best exam prep because they put the most care into researching and crafting their materials. Selling those materials and courses is a significant part of their revenue, so it doesn't make sense to do a poor quality job.

The (ISC)2 is more closely scrutinized than CompTIA, Microsoft, etc. because their certs often mean more to employers, and have a greater affect on hiring, salaries, promotions, etc. There are more than 10 times the number of A+ cert holders than CISSP, but few people care to scrutinize the ethics and quality of an organization controling a cert that will only get you a $10-15/hr job.

holysheetman

so have you scheduled a re-test?

mrowton

Sorry to hear that. I failed the CISSP the first time I took it. You can read about my experience failing here

I was told that I failed the CISSP-ISSEP with a 697. Thats only missing by one or two questions depending on how they are weighted. Fortunately I was caught up in the erroneous grading debacle and later found out I passed.

Mitchell

m130

I have not gotten my results back today. I failed for the 3rd. time. I made a 671 on mine this time. I left feeling better than the other two times. I didn't think that I would make a 1000 or anything but I felt better. I think I will try a manual recount as I had issues with my dots on the answer sheet. It may not be it but $549 or $50.

3 TIMES!!!!!!

unixkid

Did you take the test again for the 4 time?

unixkid

Wescott wrote: »

People have asked;but I don't know of any that have been changed, unless they found an error in their processing.

I passed it in December. It is a requirement for our jobs.

I used the Shon Harris dvd's and I go the ISC Student Review book:

The Official (ISC)2 CISSP CBK Review Seminar Student Handbook; Version 9.0

it was excellent and an easier read.

Good luck on the re-take.

Do you know where I can buy the review book?

emerald_octane

unixkid pm'd

Humbe

m130 wrote: »

I have not gotten my results back today. I failed for the 3rd. time. I made a 671 on mine this time. I left feeling better than the other two times. I didn't think that I would make a 1000 or anything but I felt better. I think I will try a manual recount as I had issues with my dots on the answer sheet. It may not be it but $549 or $50.

3 TIMES!!!!!!

You should try reading the Eric Conrad CISSP Review Guide. It was quite helpful for me after reading the Shon Harris bible.