Well, that was different than I expected.

TheGuy

But, I passed! I had originally had my exam scheduled for the 4th of this month, but because of an odd series of circumstances, I had to reschedule.

After reading about other people's experiences, studying constantly, and running through thousands of test questions, I am glad to say I can finally rest.

Thanks to everyone who posted their experience as well as study materials used. I'm sure it helped me get to this point.

In case anyone is curious, I went through:

the OnDemand CISSP course through SANS
Eric Conrad study guide (very good material)
Eric Conrad's 11th hour (great review)
CISSP for Dummies 3rd edition
Meeeelions of CCCure questions
(I also bought the official ISC2 study guide, but was overwhelmed by it's size, so I didn't actually use it.)

cyberguypr

WooHoo! Congrats on the pass!

someslacker

Congrats on the pass!

dmoore44

Congrats!

letstrythis1

good job!

Thistleback

Congratulations! It'll take you a few days to recover. Enjoy your victory!

JDMurray

Congratulations on passing!


And please give us a detailed review of the SANS class and Eric Conrad's materials!

sandy2k8

Congrats!!! Did you use Eric Conrad's 2nd edition which got published recently?

TheGuy

Thanks everyone!

I will try to give a rundown of my materials, please forgive me if it comes off as rambling. My brain seems to have given up on me since the exam.

As for the details of the SANS class, and the Eric Conrad materials:

The SANS course is MGT414, and did a great job of breaking down the domains into easily understandable areas. The course is pre-recorded from a previous "In-Person" 6 day class, and is lead by Dr. Eric Cole (who also lead the SANS GSEC course). The OnDemand course includes access to the recorded review, as well as the slides for each domain that are played in sync with the audio and broken down by domain, with a quiz at the end of each to make sure you understood the material. The course also includes downloadable mp3's which I used to listen to in my car which was insanely helpful with retaining the knowledge. Overall, I would greatly recommend this course.

The Eric Conrad study guide was actually shipped to me as part of the course reading materials (other materials included the printed slides from the course, broken down by domain). The version I used is not the most current, as I purchased the training last September, but was still very accurate and useful. Each domain is very easy to understand given how it is presented, and it follows very closely with the SANS training, which re-enforce each other. I read through each domain in the Study Guide after listening to the corresponding audio from the course, then took that domain's practice test. After reading through the study guide completely, I read through the Eleventh hour book to make sure I still had a solid understanding of the domains, and identify which areas I should go back an review. I ended up reading through the entire study guide again, as I had spare time due to rescheduling. The Eleventh Hour was really just a condensed version of the Study Guide, but a much quicker read that I would recommend both as an introduction to the domains, and as a final point of review.

TheGuy

I should also add that my plan for taking the exam was to answer everything I knew for sure, while flagging and reviewing anything I was unsure of. I ended up flagging 20-25 questions, and in the end, I decided not to review the flagged questions and just end the exam.

I figured that I either knew the material well enough, or I didn't. The total time to complete the exam was just over 2 hours. I know this is not the norm as far as not reviewing, but I honestly don't think I would have changed any answers on my flagged questions.

CERTS4LADY

Job well done and thanks for your preparation feedback. It all played off for you in the end. Relax a little now