CISM/CISA/CRISC/CGEIT December 2012 Feedback

victor58

DavefromMD wrote: »

I took the CISA test on Dec. 8th. I was also surprised about the questions. With IT back ground with lots of development, PM, security and auditing experience, I was hoping it will be more technical. Questions were similar to the V12 DB from ISACA. Not exact words repeated, but similar. The first 5 questions, I thought I had already seen before and that set the tone. I felt good about my performance. What really helped me was looking at the question from ISACA perspective and not from my experience. This I learnt while preparing for PMP. The books I studied and the forums I visited insisted look from PMI perspective. I did exactly same here. I fully agree with Ciphercodes above. I was not surprised about the question format, though I was expecting and wishing it to be more technical than general. Like BMAC, I also answered about 5000 questions and I knew exactly how the same question can be twisted many different ways. I registered for test on 10/3 and got study material a week later. So, I had less than 8 weeks to prepare. CRM and V12 DB are my main source. Well, I will know in 2 months, pass or not.

Dave, 5000 questions? the v12 db had 1100 questions in total. where did you find 5000 questions?

paul78

Thanks for all the interesting views on the CISA. It was not one of the ISACA knowledge areas that I was interested in pursuing but all the comments have really peaked me curiosity. I may just give it a whirl.

bmac

victor58 wrote: »

Dave, 5000 questions? the v12 db had 1100 questions in total. where did you find 5000 questions?

Its the amount of questions answered not the amount of unique questions answered.

ciphercodes

bmac wrote: »

I've tempted to officially complain to ISACA. I'm going to hold off and see if it just me that feels like this.
.

ISACA just sent out a survey request on preparation, testing environment and the exam itself.

bmac

ciphercodes wrote: »

ISACA just sent out a survey request on preparation, testing environment and the exam itself.

Yes I've completed it and I'll leave it there. I'll just wait until the results. If I fail it will be no surprise and I'll take the next exam with a bit more experience. If I pass then obviously all the hard work paid off. I still haven't lost all hope and I'm fairly confident. It is surprising how the majority on here who have taken the CISA exam this time round have had pretty much the same thoughts on it.

JayDub211

bmac wrote: »

Yes I've completed it and I'll leave it there. I'll just wait until the results. If I fail it will be no surprise and I'll take the next exam with a bit more experience. If I pass then obviously all the hard work paid off. I still haven't lost all hope and I'm fairly confident. It is surprising how the majority on here who have taken the CISA exam this time round have had pretty much the same thoughts on it.

Yeah It seems everyone feels a bit shaky. Sometimes, that's just your mind being cautiously optimistic.

I feel like I passed. I hear that about 25 questions are used for research. Lets hope all my wrong answers are in thar 25

I havent taken a standardized test in 6 years, so it was a rude awakening. I did all the preparations I could given schedule etc. Let's see if it works.

Good luck all!

bmac

JayDub211 wrote: »

Yeah It seems everyone feels a bit shaky. Sometimes, that's just your mind being cautiously optimistic.

I feel like I passed. I hear that about 25 questions are used for research. Lets hope all my wrong answers are in thar 25

I havent taken a standardized test in 6 years, so it was a rude awakening. I did all the preparations I could given schedule etc. Let's see if it works.

Good luck all!

I've heard a few more than 25 were research questions, more the merrier imo. To be honest if there are as many research questions as that, that's what is probably throwing people off. Some questions seemed to have no place in the exam and when i went through my paper after finishing i'm sure i could point out some of the research questions. Seems strange to have so many though doesn't it?

JayDub211

bmac wrote: »

I've heard a few more than 25 were research questions, more the merrier imo. To be honest if there are as many research questions as that, that's what is probably throwing people off. Some questions seemed to have no place in the exam and when i went through my paper after finishing i'm sure i could point out some of the research questions. Seems strange to have so many though doesn't it?

yeah bro. To me, There seemed to be a LOT of Chapter 2 on the test! And some of the questions had answers that weren't even in the book!

To me, that's silly. Why throw off your test takers with a plethora of research questions?!

I think they used this test as an experiment. They know what they are doing, lol. I'm sure all of us feeling "a way" about it isn't coincidence or group think!

Lets just hope that all wrong answers are research and werent counted!

CISPhD

The concepts behind experimental questions are to evolve not only the material on the test given new and emerging industry trends, but to evolve the way in which the questions are asked. There's a great deal of science regarding how questions are worded, and the environments and contexts in which examinations are administered. Any organization hoping to keep pace with such a rapidly evolving industry should be performing these types of studies.

On a whole, if you understand what you're supposed to understand to pass the test, you shouldn't miss many of the real questions. Even if you miss the experimental questions, they won't impact your score at all. Do some google searches on test delivery methodology studies. If you have access to academic journals, feel free to look there as well. There's a great deal more to studying for an exam than just studying the CBK... understanding the delivery method, and the associated best method of study, can give you an edge in even the most remote of subjects.

ciphercodes

wrote:

I hear that about 25 questions are used for research.

I hope this is true but I am am not able to find any reference to it. I verified the exam section on the CRM and it does not say anything about experimental questions.

bmac

ciphercodes wrote: »

I hope this is true but I am am not able to find any reference to it. I verified the exam section on the CRM and it does not say anything about experimental questions.

Taking the CISA Exam

5 - "The CISA exam contains some questions which are included for research and analysis purposes only. These questions are not separately identified and not used to calculate your final score."

paul78

S

ciphercodes wrote: »

ISACA just sent out a survey request on preparation, testing environment and the exam itself.

I just got the email too.

I couldn't help noticing that the email subject had the word "Department" spelled incorrectly. My theory is that the survey is part of the test. I think its to see if you can identify a phishing attempt since badly worded or misspelled emails are considered an indicator of phishing emails. (ducks to avoid the projectiles)

victor58

CISPhD wrote: »

The concepts behind experimental questions are to evolve not only the material on the test given new and emerging industry trends, but to evolve the way in which the questions are asked. There's a great deal of science regarding how questions are worded, and the environments and contexts in which examinations are administered. Any organization hoping to keep pace with such a rapidly evolving industry should be performing these types of studies.

On a whole, if you understand what you're supposed to understand to pass the test, you shouldn't miss many of the real questions. Even if you miss the experimental questions, they won't impact your score at all. Do some google searches on test delivery methodology studies. If you have access to academic journals, feel free to look there as well. There's a great deal more to studying for an exam than just studying the CBK... understanding the delivery method, and the associated best method of study, can give you an edge in even the most remote of subjects.

Do you have links to so called "test delivery methodology studies" research papers, etc? Would be interesting to read.

CISPhD

paul78 wrote: »

My theory is that the survey is part of the test.

Don't quit your day job bud.

victor58 wrote: »

Do you have links...

Check these out for starters:
http://learninglab.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/2007_Butler_Karpicke_Roediger_JEPA.pdf
http://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/acca/global/PDF-students/2012s/eg_oct11_f1-3b.pdf

paul78

One thing that I like about how ISACA schedules only twice a year exams is the shared anticipation for the results

4 more weeks to go...

CISPhD

Looks like ISACA has doubled the number of times they administer the exams each year. In addition to their standard schedule, they now have exams in Sept 2013 and April 2014.

minbag

I agree. I finished the CISA exam and didn't get ONE question that belonged to section 5. Nothing on crypto, IT hardware, nothing. Very weird. I got some ridiculous questions about physical security, which didn't even make sense. I was also convinced that I'd sat for the wrong exam and checked the front of the exam page twice, I thought I was losing my mind.

I'm not doing any more ISACA exams until they get their act together and get their system computerized..... If the CISSP is online, why isn't CISM and CISA?

CISPhD

minbag wrote: »

If the CISSP is online, why isn't CISM and CISA?

There is a pretty big expense associated with computerizing an exam. I imagine ISACA isn't computerized yet as it is cost prohibitive... That is unless, of course, you'd rather pay even more for an ISACA exam.

Furthermore, while I haven't sat their CISA exam yet (June 2013), I have sat two of their other exams that were spot on. If you didn't like the CISA, shoot for some of their other exams (Assuming you're qualified). They're not all bad.

vasyvasy

Hey, I completely agree with minibag
I cannot speak for other previous CISA exams, but on Dec 8th the questions for Domain #5 just seemed ... non-existent

bmac

Seems to be a lot of negative feedback on the quality of Dec CISA exams. It will be interesting to see just how many of us pass.

iwantcisa

I heard that associates who are sure to pass start getting the results earlier. Is this true? I am not sure how early. Anyone got any e-mail "pass" notification?

paul78

No, there is no evidence that I've seen that it is true. Previous experience is that results are released simultaneously world wide. If history is an indicator, the results will be released in the first week of February. My money is on Feb 1 . Other predictions so far is:

bmac - Feb 8
CISPhd - Feb 6

bmac

Along with Paul, I haven't heard of anything that suggest people get results early like that, only that everyone gets them at pretty much the same time (at least the same day) worldwide.

CISPhD

According to my local ISACA rep, there is a chance your local chapter could release some early indications of scores during their monthly chapter meeting. In their RapidFire presentation, for the month of January, they often list some of the high scorers for the chapter. If you happen to have been one of them, that would be a pretty good indication that you passed. It won't give you a score, but you could safely assume you passed. However, this is contingent on how late in January your local chapter is hosting their monthly meeting. My chapter is on the 17th, so it's too early to tell. I'm told ISACA generally doesn't have scores ready to go until about 10 days before true release. So if your local monthly chapter meeting is in the last few days of January, you might stand a chance.

GoodBishop

ISACA keeps asking me to submit questions - maybe I will after all the troubles people have...

paul78

I remember when reading the guidelines on question creation, the most complicated part was figuring what rubricing means. Maybe that's why all the CISA questions look like its for a different cert

pktlabs

I completely agree with all of the feedback here and the randomness that was the CISA exam. The exam proctors gave us an email to complain about exam questions but there was no way for us to indicate which questions require review. I passed this information on through their Exam Survey they sent out.

I'm betting on Feb 1st @ 4:45pm.

AnthonyF

Almost time for results... Good Luck! I am going to try my hand with IASCA soon. I already registered for Jun 13 exam.

bmac

I have asked ISACA whether they have a more accurate date for results other than approx 8 weeks. They responded and said hopefully the first week of February. This is still the 8 week point so no further forward on that. Oh well, not too long to go now.

paul78

Thanks for checking bmac. It sounds like the standard ISACA response . And given that Feb 1 falls on a Friday, that could be 1 or 2 weeks from now. I'm still holding out that it will be Feb 1 if previous years were an indicator.

Good luck everyone.