Dear all,
I would like to thank everyone that contributed on this forum as I am pleased to announce that I passed the CISSP on my first attempt. Without your support I would not have managed.
About me - I have been working in IT for 10 years with the last 4-5 years in IT Security. I am exposed to mainly technical and operation security duties but I do have some occasional duties where I have to wear the managerial hat. I also hold a MSc Degree in Information Security which I have to say did help with the CISSP Studies. I have been studying for the CISSP for around 10 months. It was not a full time study though, as I had another exam last November to sit for.
I took the CISSP exam in London, (as I live in Malta and the computer based exam is not available here and none of the centres were going to organise the course and written exam) so I had to book a 3 hour flight with another hour and a half of travel for the lodging destination. I had a tough time sleeping the night before the flight and even the night in London before the exam.
The exam – The exam was tough but definitely not impossible (and not because I passed). I ended up taking 5 hours 55mins, without a break - no water, no food, no bathroom which was not easy. I was constantly calculating the questions I was certain of and the ones I was not, including checking how much time was left. For example, out of 100 questions answered, 25 were uncertain which "could" mean a border pass - which (for me) is too risky so I closed my eyes, stretched (weirdly) on the chair simulating some form of aerobics for a couple of seconds and then continued. I took the call not take a break as I knew I would not have finished if I did.
As soon as the test started the 1st question threw me off. I wasted (I think) 10-15mins which was not a good move. I then gave up and moved on. The test was getting better over time, however there were times where certain questions inserted doubts and these were the ones I took note of. Over all, I could single out the correct answer without any problems but fatigue was causing me to reread or understand the question incorrectly. In fact I read each question at least 3 times before I went to the next. During the last 5 minutes I had 10 flagged. I corrected 2 of them, 1 of them being the first question, as i then understood it. With 10 seocnds on the clock i ended the exam.
Materials I used:
Free Tests –
McGraw-Hill Education | CISSP Practice ExamsElsevier: conrad: CISSP Study Guide Practice ExamsCertification Central - CISSPCISSP Practice Test - Certification Training - Online Courses
Paid Tests -
www.freepracticetests.org (Cccure).
I worked 3425 questions from CCCure and many many others from the above sources including the Sybex test center and Total Tester and others from the study books. The last week I decided to work questions chapter by chapter and if I wasn’t achieving more than 80% and I would go back to the books. I also made notes which were constantly being updated with information from different sources and eventually focused on those.
Books –
CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, 6th Edition
Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK 2013
ExamCram Greg Michael
Internet Sources - Many sources including news and standards such as NIST and ISO 27001/2.
Good luck to all the new test takers.
