Preparing for CISSP - CCCure quizzes question

Hi all,

I have read through many of the threads of taking the CCCure quizzes (www.freepracticetests.org) to help prepare for the CISSP (in addition to reading materials, etc.). Many of you who have used these quizzes who have passed the CISSP have said you were scoring in the 80-90s before taking the CISSP.

My question is: how many questions were selecting per quiz? Did you select all 10 domains and 50 questions at a time or did you select a specific domain and select 20 questions, or did you go all out and do 250 questions per quiz? Or does it matter? I'm trying to find a good bench mark for myself and taking these exams.

I take my exam in a week and a half and am trying to best prepare for it

Thanks!

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JDMurray

If you want an assessment where you are in your understanding of the exam material, and your mental stamina for the exam, you should do 10 domains with 250 questions. This will give you an idea of how well you can understand and concentrate on the material. Give yourself six hours to complete, and take a short break every once in a while, just like you will do with the real exam. No being distracted by Telephones, TV, Web browsers, etc. allowed.

Also consider that the actual CISSP exam questions will be more difficult and of a wider variety of topics that what you will see at freepracticetests.org. You get what you pay for.

letstrythis1

Thanks JD! This is my 2nd attempt. I took the exam in Dec and missed it by 19 points. I know my three weakest domains, so I've been hitting the books hard on those and trying to also not lose sight of the other 7 domains. I just wanted to get a feel for those who have passed the exam who used the cccure quiz engine how they best gauged their knowledge based off of these quizzes and percentage scored.

cdupuis

Good day Letstrythis1,

I am Clement the owner of the freepracticetests.org web site. Here is the recipe that I always propose to my students:

I always stress that students should do as many quizzes as they can before their exam. Do our quizzes and do the quizzes you have within your study book as well.

The quiz will give you a few key advantages. It will allow you to find your weakest domains which is what you MUST work on.
The quiz will also allow you to find your weakest subjects within each of the domains, you must work on those as well.
Last but not least the quiz will allow you to remember key topics that you might encounter on the exam.

While doing the quizzes, there a few things you must do:

Do quizzes of at least 50 questions each to have better sampling
Use Pro Level and Closely Related questions, those are the closest to the real exam. It is the default setting.
Keep doing quizzes on the same domain until you score CONSISTENTLY around 80%
Once you reach 80% you move to the next domain. You do this for all of the domain.
While doing quizzes review and find out WHY you miss a question and WHY the best choice is the best choice
You should go through the whole database of question at least once and a few times would be better
Attempt to do a few quizzes of 250 questions on all 10 domains before the real exam. Just to see what it is like to do that much.
After you have done many quizzes you can choose the following options:
- Unattempted Questions only This option will create a quiz with questions you have never seen due to the quiz being randomly generated
- Questions that was answered wrong previously This option allow you to drill down on questions you have missed in the past
The quiz will remember your last setting, to go back to the default click on the button marked Reset Quiz Option/Settings

MOST IMPORTANT DOMAIN ON THE EXAM

Many people have heard that some domains are more important than others as far as the number of questions they will get on the real exam. This is true, There are some key domains that you must do well to ensure a passing mark on the real exam. For the past 12 years I have been doing CISSP training and anytime someone would miss the exam I have seen a fix pattern that emerged. All of the people that failed did badly on one or two of the five most important domains. See my list of domains below, the top domains (five five listed with *) are the most important domains and the at the bottom of the list you have the least important domains.

Telecommunication and Network Security*
Access Control*
Security Architecture*
Information Security Governance and Risk Management*
BCP and DRP*
Software Development Security
Cryptography
Legal, Compliance, Investigation
Operation Security
Physical Security

Start doing quizzes like I said above one domain at the time. You start with the top five domains and then you get into the other five domains. As you get closer to your exam, for example a week or 8 days before your exam, you revisit the top five again. You want the most important domains to be fresh in your mind as you get to the exam.

With about 1700 questions available to you I think the sampling is pretty good. If you have any questions please feel free to write to me directly at clement.dupuis@gmail.com

I wish you all the best

Take care

Clement

JDMurray

Yes, hit your 3-4 weakest domains and don't wait to re-take the exam and you should do fine. Having already seen the exam and lived through the experience, you'll have a leg-up on the "first timers."

Jcast

I did the CCCure questions in 25 question increments. My strategy was to digest the answers not too long after answering the questions. If you wait 200 questions and 3 hours later to see an answer, you won't even remember your thought process when you first answered it. In the 2 days leading up to the test I did a 250 question exam each day but the scoring blew up on me so I never knew how I did overall. You should be above 80% correct on your answers to be ready.

letstrythis1

Thanks everyone for your input and guidance

It is all very much appreciated in my going forward in taking the CISSP exam for the 2nd time (1st time for the CBT version). I look forward to sharing my results with you all in a few weeks.

I am attempting the 50 questions at a time with the tactics cdupuis mentioned and looking at my three lowest scored domains, for similar reasons as Jcast had mentioned (keeping topics fresh in my mind). I plan to do a 250 question quiz or two to mentally prepare for the test too closer to my test date.

joedain

I have being doing the 50 question idea to...I have been studying slowly for about 6 months. I have ready the SYBEX book, did about 80% of the CBT Nuggets, Finished the VTE CBTs, I have Security+, and I have went through Quickcerts CISSP CBTs 3 times just listening to them while driving.

I feel like I know the material pretty well, but I know I have more fine tuning to do. With that said I am struggling to get an average of 80 on those questions. Not sure if its because I just started doing pratice test for it and not use to the formats, or I just dont know the material...It also seems like the stuff I get right, I know well, but the stuff I get wrong its like I have never seen it before.

Lob

I'd like to add what I found most valuable - and it certainly was tests tests tests.

I used the Boson prep exam and was sitting random exams of 250 questions at a time. My basic approach was to read the question, go with my gut and then reveal the answer and suck it up if it was wrong......and print it to PDF so that I could address the blind spots on my commute using a tablet to review the questions.

Repeating cycles like this saw me go from around 70% to over 90% correct on any test.

Another tip for the exam itself (I did the PBT but I assume it counts for the CBT too): ring the key words in the question to ensure you understand it correctly. I found 50% of my errors when first doing prep exams was that I skimmed the question and thus charged into the wrong answer.

harrym1

Hi Lob,

"I used the Boson prep exam and was sitting random exams of 250 questions at a time. "

Are you talking "about Boson ExSim-Max for CISSP $99?"
Thanks

beads

One thing I noticed was the range of questions published by many authors in the CISSP book milieu. Some very good, some bad. Many had there own pros and cons. In effect I would suggest looking for as many sources possible and quiz, quiz - quiz. Til you can't take anymore. My personal preference is for physical quiz books, where I can flip back and forth to check answers I am unsure about. Those are the ones I remember why I failed to answer correctly and went back to do more studying in an inch-worm effect very effectively. Then again, that's how I learn best for me.

Feel free to find what works for you but I will say that you'll only truly be ready when your begging to have the opportunity just to take the test so you don't feel the need to study the material any more.

- beads

Lob

harrym1 wrote: »

Hi Lob,

"I used the Boson prep exam and was sitting random exams of 250 questions at a time. "

Are you talking "about Boson ExSim-Max for CISSP $99?"
Thanks

Yes, you can also Google 25% off very easily

beads

Forgot to mention that if you think CCCure is out of date or not in depth enough to your liking you can submit your own questions and detailed answers to help make the product better, as well.

- beads

airben

Lob wrote: »

I'd like to add what I found most valuable - and it certainly was tests tests tests.

I used the Boson prep exam and was sitting random exams of 250 questions at a time.

Lob,

How good was the Boson prep exam in comparison to the actual test? I'm thinking of purchasing it to help me prepare.

Lob

airben wrote: »

Lob,How good was the Boson prep exam in comparison to the actual test? I'm thinking of purchasing it to help me prepare.

sorry for the late reply - invaluable. What I did was blitz through the Boson exams a few times, recorded where I was weak, printed off all the wrong answers to PDF and studied them on my PC and tablet when commuting. The Boson stuff was recommended to me by a fellow CISSP.My approach was very much to read the question and answer it ASAP. I found that many of my mistakes were in the reading of the question and this helped me correct that. It was one of my aims to see where I was weak - at the question digestion stage or simply lacking in knowledge.I believe that helped me in the exam as I could actually pick the answer very easily due to how the question was structured.

bgareotsene

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