Passed CISSP exam CBT 2nd attempt (first attempt PBT 12/19/2011)

Hi all,

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to posting.

Here is a response I gave to a prospective CISSP exam-taker:

Hey there,

I'm sorry I haven't updated my post yet with more information. But yeah, I think the CBT was definitely better for me to take. I bought the subscription to CCCure and took the suggestion of Clement (the creator *correction* the ownerof the practice tests) *SEE BELOW QUOTED TEXT*.

I did each domain in sets of 50 questions with his suggested settings (like level pro) and kept take the tests until I was in the 80%+ range. Also, I focused on the suggested domains he said, what Iris suggested as what she thought were the main focused domains on the PBT exam (one of the fellow contributors to these forums) and then also focused on my lowest three scored domains. I mostly ended up doing 2-6 quizzes on the 5 domains Clement suggested (which ended up being two of my weakest domains and three of the domain Iris suggested). The other 5 domains I went through the quiz maybe once or twice (to at least get an 80%).

After going through all domains, I took 3 or 4 tests of taking 250 questions at a time with all the domains. I was really surprised at making 80% +'s on all of those.

The test was at times harder than CCCure.org, but at other times I felt it was easier. Taking the CBT, I felt much more comfortable. I think the instilled confidence of scoring high on CCCure.org helped too. I must I say I was really scared of have a false sense of security from taking the CCCure.org tests and from focusing so much energy the last week of studying on those quizzes, but I really think they helped me focus on what key concepts I was not getting.

Aside from CCCure.org, I have Shon Harris's big book the AIO, Shon Harris's Practice Questions (really good scenario based questions) and I had a subscription to Logical Security's Video boot camp that I took before the first time I took the test. The boot camp videos were okay, but really not necessary for me in hindsight. Most of that material I had gone through preparing for the first exam via PBT and only really went back to reference a topic I didn't quite fully understand.

Also my background has been mostly systems admin in the military, computer technician (help desk, networking) in a county govt, and 2 fed govt jobs doing networking, remote access and cross domains. I just finished my MS in Information Systems Technology highly focused in Information Security. I had a lot going on the first time I took the CISSP (finals week, engaged and was soon to be married in a few months, etc), so this time around it was much easier to focus on studying for this certification.

I was able to get through the exam with one pass by noon, I breaked for lunch (a protein bar and a five hour energy drink- not a normal lunch, but quick easy and energy supplying). And then I got back to the exam for a second pass, highly looking at my flagged items. I maybe switched 10 of my answers, but on most of them I kept my first answer. This is where I think I messed up on the PBT, too much second guessing myself and changing my answers. I tried going over the test a third pass, but by the time I got to question 20 or 30 on the 3rd pass, I only had 20 minutes left and thought f* it, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to change any of my answers. So I re-evaluated how many questions I was unsure of and could possibly get wrong which was around 60 and then I did the math of what it would take to pass, etc. That's the other thing I really enjoyed on the CBT was the calculator. I used it on 1 or 2 questions, but mostly used it to gauge on how well I was doing on the exam to reassure myself.

Anyways, I'm not sure if this help answer any of your questions. Let me know if you have any others. I'd be happy to answer them. I'll probably copy paste most of this for my forum response too.

Take care and best of luck to everyone taking the exam! The rest of the forum people have said you have a much better chance of passing the 2nd time around and I fully believe it.

cdupuis wrote: »

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

letstrythis1

Also, thank you everyone on the congratulations! It's very much appreciated coming from this community of 1337 techies.