CISSP exam April 15, 2012 Experience

w77m

Techexams.net member for quite a while (I think!) and have been absent from cert's for a while for various reasons ...anyway, I was lurking this forum the last couple of days casually during the finally prep for the CISSP exam. I took the exam today and like countless others who commented, the exam made me think WTF about some questions that came up. I don't know if I will pass or not because my final night rest and sleep priority was destroyed. I stayed at hotel overnight (because of the test being on a Sunday and limited bus service on Sunday) and felt sleepy by 10.30pm and went to bed, but couldn't sleep - it wasn't exam anxiety...more of sleeping in a "foreign' bed and then noise in and around the hotel-things you don't notice when the lights are on. Twisted and turned, switched to opposite side of bed, even put on ear protector i used for reading, but it was a struggle, I may have got a max of 3-4hrs sleep when the intention was 7-8hrs. I woke up thinking this was a personal disaster for me and no contingency plan or roll back out of this!!! Immediate thought was I made the wrong decision and would have been better off staying home and taking risk of catching that single 7am bus into the city! I tried my best to stay alert during the exam and I thought I was, however some of the exam questions were eye opening and many times made me think WTF is this? But now I'm wondering if tiredness played a part in comprehending the questions? I used up the full 6hrs (as did others taking the test), had to go back and answer/guess on the ones I was really stumpted on. I think I prepared the best I could for this and learned a lot and based on practice tests I cautiously felt optimistic. I desperately need a change of jobs so I prepared really hard. The whole sleep thing and then questions and area's of focus make me doubt and think I over studied or studied the wrong domains too much (telecom/crytpo/security architecture). Would have loved more questions in telecom/crypto..but feeling so tired now I can't recall if there were a lot on them or not. 2 or 3 terms really stumped me and made me angry because I never encountered them (at least I don't think so, will have to check texts) forced my hands to google them on the bus home...I took guesses on them and am hopeful I guessed them correctly by logical deduction. Anyway, I will await the result and if its the worst I will prepare to take another shot at it because I feel its within my grasp to get this certification.

I initially prepared for this last May with CBT's on and off and taking notes (couldn't grasp bell-lapdula/biba from viewing cbt's), then seriously got into it around August expecting to take the exam on December 19th but then had interruptions in personal life in November and resumed again around Late Jan or Feb. I used AIO 5th Edition (blanking out the attempted humor, very annoying!), Eric Congrad's CISSP Study Guide, also the 11th hour CISSP guide. Test quizzes from AIO, Syngress website 2 tests, and then finally a week ago CCcure.org - which I probably should have started using sooner. I was getting passing scores in all of these but the blasted sleep plan may have ruined things when it came to the real thing! I think i might be ranting or sleep typing now....! Patiently awaiting moment of truth!

w77m

After the agony of sleep and struggles on april 15th...I just got the email saying I passed! Heart pounded before I opened the email but its a huge relief! Hopefully the endorsement and resume part will also go well to complete the certification!