CISSPassed?

flippedman

Well, I sat for the CISSP this past Saturday April 30th in College Park, MD. I felt pretty good taking the test, and felt pretty good coming out of the exam location, so hopefully that is a good indication that I passed. I feel like I was able to spot the 'tricks' they used in asking questions; although pretty much all the questions felt tricky to me.

What can I say about the exam? This may be a little weird, but it was just fun to take it, and fun to test myself and my mental capacities. It truly is a comprehensive exam and hopefully the hard work of 3+ months of pure studying will pay off. You reap what you sow, and man did I sow...a lot.

I'll briefly mention some things I did to prepare, but don't want to go into a full blown study plan until I get notification, because then it won't help anyone.

Main Study Material:
Primary - Shon Harris AIO 5th ed
Secondary - ISC2 Study guide
Tertiary - Eric Conrad CISSP Study Guide
Other: VTE web courses

Opinion - If I had to do it all over again I would STILL use the AIO as my primary and supplement even more with Eric Conrad's book, I barely used the ISC2 study guide, it just didn't read well although I'll probably use it as a reference in the future. Conrad's book was very good in tightening up the concepts and last-week preparation.

How I studied:
My biggest worry was how to remember EVERYTHING, but, Thank God, I came across a special study method in Wired magazine titled "Want to remember everything you've ever learned?". It was an article about the SuperMemo study method, which I will get into later. It worked much more than I anticipated.

In my opinion, the biggest thing you can do to prepare for this exam is five-fold (in no particular order):

1) KNOW HOW YOU STUDY, taking notes works for me so I stuck with that, and the supermemo method includes a varied way of breaking down the information for memory retention and recall.

2) PLAN YOUR WORK and WORK YOUR PLAN. Come up with a study plan beforehand and stick with it. More on this later.

3) SET GOALS. I would even say set some crazy goals, that's the only way you'll study your hardest. For example, I set the goal of "Being the first person to score a 100% on the CISSP". Mind you, this is probably very unrealistic, but each time I caught myself studying "just to pass" I reminded myself of my goal and I felt guilty about not studying my hardest.

4) YOUR LIFE IS MORE THAN THE CISSP. This should probably be at the top of the list. I honestly felt that I invested some of my soul into this exam and it got to a point where I thought "What am I going to do if I don't pass?". Well, I'll tell you right now, I corrected myself and my thought processes and said to myself "The same thing I always do, and that's enjoy life" (although I reminded myself I still wanted it....bad).

5) DO THINGS TO KEEP YOURSELF SANE. I really enjoy kickboxing, so I stuck with that 2x week to keep my fitness level up and to break up the time. Keeps the blood flowing to the brain too.

Well, hopefully I won't have to wait 4+ weeks to hear results, because even though I am confident, my biggest worry is that I made stupid mistake like putting my first name last and last name first on the scantron.

More later.

JDMurray

Thanks for the great review and good luck on your results.

Getting enough regular exercise to keep yourself alert is great advice for anyone studying for a big cert exam. It really does wonders for your brain.

famosbrown

Congrats on the pass! I'm sure you walked away with a pass and a lot of new knowledge gained through the hard studying. Keep an eye out on other candidate result dates...I took the exam the same week that others got results, so I had to wait a few weeks for my results...guessing they queue them up before grading and communicating results.

colemic

Not to steal your thunder but here is a link to the wired article.

Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm

Haven't read it yet, waiting for the Prez to announce that OBL got capped.

kmdickinson

I took the exam at the College Park site as well this past Saturday. The test was certainly humbling but I felt good as I closed my book. I studied the Shon Harris guides as well as a couple of other practice exam sites. One was cisspexampractice.com and I don't think this site was worth the time.

Good luck on your results!

rwmidl

flippedman wrote: »

4) YOUR LIFE IS MORE THAN THE CISSP. This should probably be at the top of the list. I honestly felt that I invested some of my soul into this exam and it got to a point where I thought "What am I going to do if I don't pass?". Well, I'll tell you right now, I corrected myself and my thought processes and said to myself "The same thing I always do, and that's enjoy life" (although I reminded myself I still wanted it....bad).

5) DO THINGS TO KEEP YOURSELF SANE. I really enjoy kickboxing, so I stuck with that 2x week to keep my fitness level up and to break up the time. Keeps the blood flowing to the brain too.

4 and 5 are the truth!

Best of luck - the waiting for the results is the worst part.

security tech

Thank you for giving us your experience of taking the CISSP. Your write up gave me confidence. I sit for my exam in about 6 months, my main source of studying is AIO. I am going to purchase additional study material, after I finish the AIO.

I totally agree with your step 4 & 5. Can't wait to hear your results that you PASSED!

ITdude

Anyone know if the CBT Nuggets are worthwhile for this exam, as a supplement?

Megalops

flippedman, any word on the results from your 4/30 test yet? I've seen that a few others have gotten their results on Friday.

flippedman

Really? I've been checking my email quite a bit and have not seen anything from ISC2. I've even checked my spam email.

Megalops

flippedman wrote: »

Really? I've been checking my email quite a bit and have not seen anything from ISC2. I've even checked my spam email.

If you check the other forum, you'll see that there have been results from 4/30 and 5/1 test takers.

flippedman

Which forum? Thanks.

JDMurray

Posting links to the forums of non-illegal Web site is allowed. However, cccure.org requires that people have a registered membership and sign-in before their forum postings can be read, so it's likely that most people will not be able to follow links to their forum posts.

kmdickinson

Hey flippedman, I took my test in College Park on the 30th and I'm still waiting too. The person reporting that he got results on the 30th at cccure.org took his in Budapest. Hopefully any day now.

dbla17

I attended the CISSP exam in NY on April 16th 2011 and still have not received my results. Anyone else wait this long?

mmatja

dbla17 wrote: »

I attended the CISSP exam in NY on April 16th 2011 and still have not received my results. Anyone else wait this long?

No results yet for me too - I attended the CISSP exam in Kraków,Poland on April 16th. I emailed registrat@... a week ago, but received the info that my result is still unavailable.

TunYau

I had taken the exam on 16 April Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.
Still no result yet.

Saw 2 candidate pass in a Shanghai and Hong Kong in 1 chinese forum.

It seems result only send on Firday Morning US Eastern Time?

flippedman

Passed!!!

I'm pretty happy right now. From the start of studying to taking the exam was about 3 months.

I will go into more detail later.

kmdickinson

Congrats on the pass!

ITdude

Congrats, great going! Looking forward to seeing your further details.....

mmatja

My results came in yesterday - I passed I will try to write a few words on exam preparation later.

TunYau

Congratulation flippedman and mmatja.

Same here just received the result today morning.
Result send from ISC on Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 11:29:31 -0400.

Will share my experience later.

flippedman

I have attached two documents (my study strategy and my actual study plan) which I hope will be useful for anyone preparing for the CISSP exam. Let me know if you have any questions!