2 weeks until test! Best prep?

hcaeb2000

Hello all,

I've enjoyed lurking around and I finally joined the forum today. I have 2 weeks until my exam on December 19th and I am struggling with where to focus my attention at this point. I've gone through the material. Mostly the Shon Harris CISSP All in one Exam Guide. Been to a boot camp back in September. Scoring pretty well on most practice exams including Transcenders, the ones in the book and some others recommended here.

Any suggestions on what to focus on? Any Domains more important than others? I know to try and concentrate where you are weak is one strategy.

Thanks,

emerald_octane

2 weeks ideally you shouldn't be learning anything good.

I say most people have trouble with crypto and BCP/DR and compliance because its a foreign concepts for most folks. Do you REALLY know them? Do you know the difference between encipherment methods? Do you know how to calcuate ALE quickly? Do you know the ISO standards like your phone number?

wes allen

You can use google to find some hints on the top 5 domains, and they are here in some thread or other, I think. I have posted it before, but for test taking strategy, I thought this was helpful - https://www.sans.org/webcasts/successful-passing-cissp-95594

Paperlantern

I read CISSP for Dummies in my last two to three weeks before exam. I liked it, since it is kind of basic it was a really good review, I knew 90% of what was in there and it helped me feel pretty good about taking the Exam. Of course I still went in nervous, but you can't help that.

hcaeb2000

Thanks,

All good suggestions. I think I'm in the stage fright/cold feet stage. I'm confident yet concerned but I have always been a good test taker. Crypto was definitely one of the domains I plain on going back to review. For me unlike a lot of folks on the forum I don't seem to have a lot of trouble with BCP/DR but I think that has to do with me being involved on a team that built a BCP/DR plan for an organization I worked for, at the time I hated it but now I think it has paid off for me as far as this test is concerned.

Thanks again guys and gals...

Drebbin

hcaeb2000

Funny I am watching the video suggested above and what he is saying makes me think I better not dismiss further review of BCP/DR...

Iristheangel

I went to a bootcamp a week before my test but that might not be financially plausible for most. I would recommend CISSP for Dummies as review and maybe a video series to reinforce everything. Be careful about the wording of the questions: Some of the questions are VERY straightforward and some of them are a little tricky if you don't notice that ONE word or if you read too much into the irrelevant details. Some of the longer questions are littered with irrelevant details that are meant to trick you or confuse you: For these, focus on what the question is and pinpoint the relevant details in the description or scenario.


Good luck!

Edit: Oh and focus on these: Security Architecture, Crypto, Governance, BCP/DR <---- You will see these domains more than others
The things you shouldn't stress AS hard about: Physical and Legal <--- yes, you'll get asked some questions on these but the ratio to other domains is much much smaller.

Everything else is the gray in between

datschmo

Good luck on the 19th!!! I'm scheduled to take it on the 21st...

Thistleback

Good luck on your exam! Sounds like you are prepared . . . but few ever feel fully confident going into this exam. The ones that do, for some reason, tend to fail. So "Confident but Concerned" is a good place to be - it doesn't get much better . . .

hcaeb2000

Thanks for the good luck.

It's funny everyday my confidence level changes. I'll sit down and take a practice exam and do really well and I feel real good and then I take another one and I don't do so well and bam I feel unprepared and I hit the books and videos. One thing I am really trying to focus on is reading through the whole question and every answer. I notice on practice exams I miss questions on silly oversights. If I can eliminate those mistakes I think I am good.

One Week! At this this time next week I'll be taking the exam.

f0rgiv3n

Good luck tomorrow!

hcaeb2000

Thanks,

Its crunch time now. Test is at 10:45am tomorrow. I've been going through various practice exams from different sources and I've done pretty well but questions still pop on me that make me think I need to go back and cover those areas again. Grrrrrr!

CISPhD

Best of luck tomorrow. Please let me know how you do! I'm interested in talking with you in more detail about your study habits versus mine. My test is scheduled for 03/30/13. Please PM me when you have a few.

hcaeb2000

I passed! Just got back from the Exam center.

Not easy is all I can say. I can say the comments about understanding the concepts over remembering are right on.

If anyone is interested these were my study materials:

Shon Harris AIO
IP3 boot camp
IP3 Videos that were included in the boot camp.
11th Hour CISSP Study Guide

Transcenders Practice Exams
Practice Exams in the AIO Guide
Other various Practice exams that escape me at this point.

I pretty much rotated between materials, when I got sick of looking at one I went to something else.

JDMurray

Congratulations on passing the CISSP exam!

wes allen

Congrats! Feels good to see that that printout for sure.

hcaeb2000

wes allen wrote: »

Congrats! Feels good to see that that printout for sure.

Yes it does. I was really nervous at the end and most of the test I thought I was walking the line. However after I went back through the questions I marked for review I felt better. It's nice to see that Congratulations!