I passed CISSP in first attempt: Some Tips for Study and Passing the Exam

Kashir

Hello All

I have been in IT for last 14 years and have been involved with IT/Network security for more than 6 years. My current employer does not have any requirements for any type of certification so I never pushed myself for CISSP or other certification exams. I thought about writing CISSP two years ago in case I decided to move or if employer decided to let me go, but was never able to motivate myself. I did finish few chapters in last two years but very half heartedly.

Three months ago, my employer announced to move it office to a different city with a possibility of same job to some people in a new city and lay off for rest of the employees in my city. This announcement really got me going and I started to spend 3-4 every hour every day since February this year.

I used ISC official book as the main reference with Shaun Harris, Erin Conrad (syngress) and Sybex as the reference material. I didn’t like Shaun Harris as it has too much information, almost impossible to read the whole book and retain most of it in a short amount of time. I really like Eric Conrad book, it covered almost all the material with fewer details. I suggest you use his book as a reference and consult others if you need more information.

I used to quickly scan ISC book to cover important topics and then use the question and answer at end of each chapter for all reference books to figure out which area is my weak point. I also used CCCURE online quiz to check my progress. I didn’t order any other exams because I learnt through various forums, ISC does not repeat questions. CCURE has a big quiz engine so didn’t think I would need other tests. If you decided to use CCURE or some other test engine, please make sure you set your expectation correctly. These tests will only help you judge your weak and strong areas; it’s very unlikely any of the questions will repeat.

I also used the summary section of each book to ensure that I don’t miss any topic.

I also learnt that CISSP exam does not ask very technical question, it touches each domain at a high level with questions which are very subjective and practical. This was another reason I didn’t try to cram each section of the book, I tried to focus on retaining the key ideas.

Once I started to get 75% marks in some of the sample tests, I started to feel very comfortable and I decided to write the exam on April 3, 2013.

Another tip before I start into actual exam content, if you don’t know the answer of question, try to eliminate wrong answers, in more than 80% of the cases you should be able to eliminate at least 2 answer very easily and then it’s a 50% chance of getting the correct answer if you don’t know which one is correct.

The actual exam questions were high level and very subjective. During first hour of exam, I spent a lot of time reading and answering each question and I started to have this fear not completing the exam. Since you can always mark a question and come back to a question after you finish the exam, I started to answer question quickly and finished the rest of question in next 2 hours. I then spent rest of 3 hours to review each question again and in second attempt I was able to focus better as I have already seen all the questions and I have no fear of not completing the exam. In my second review I think I changed at least 30 answers.

I think if you have the right experience, with some study this exam is not difficult to pass but if you don’t have right experience then you might need to study very hard and you may not pass in first attempt as without right experience it’s difficult to apply a situation with the knowledge gained through book.

I hope you find this helpful.

azmatt

Congrats and thanks for the walkthrough.