I'm taking the CISSP Exam next Friday (14th)

Breadfan

After taking a boot-camp from work, reading numerous books, taking MANY, MANY, MANY practice tests to find my weak spots and making my own flashcards using Mnemosyne, I feel "almost" ready.

I still feel I have a few weak areas such as the TCSEC Orange Book Classes/Categories and it's driving me insane. ....

Does anyone have a mnemonic or something that helped them "grasp" the categories? The EAL's are also something I seem to lack as well. Most everything else I pretty much have down "I think".

I plan on taking a few full exam runs to prepare myself for the 6 hour/250 question set marathon in a week. Other than that, I am just trying to cover my weak points while still remembering the other stuff.

Hopefully, I will pull off the miraculous and get a pass next week. I cannot thank everyone who contributes to this forum enough though. I rarely post or sign-on, but I am on here browsing many times a day. Without the great knowledge, insight, and motivation everyone gives, most of us would not achieve these certs, etc.

Breadfan

Anyone? Beuler?.......Beuler......

danny069

Well at least the exam is not on Friday the 13th. Are you going to listen to "Enter Sandman" before the exam?

Breadfan

LOL...eh...probably. I ALWAYS listen to Metallica prior to doing something that has my nerves in shambles. Metallica CALMS my nerves. I am sure it does the opposite to others, but to me the music is soothing.

I am so nervous about this exam, I am starting the "no-sleep" nights already. Everyone has provided a lot of good insight into the exam but I have to just go in there and face the music. I hope the questions arent as badly worded as the CompTIA/MS ones are.

danny069

It seems like you have done a lot of training already you have to go in there with confidence. There is a student in my class that passed the CISSP exam by only reading Shon Harris' book twice. So how difficult can it be? As long as you know the concepts, definitions you should be okay. You can mark the ones that give you trouble and skip them, then do the easy ones and go back. I plan to take this exam too in the summer, I'm sure you will pass.

Breadfan

Thanks for the vote of confidence Danny. I will need it. I suck at test taking and will just have to FORCE myself to SLOW down and read the questions carefully. I have tripped myself in the past by not doing this and rushing through too quickly. I think the thing the makes me panic the most is having to pay for this exam TWICE. That is a lot of bread. I can take the disappointment. It's just having to shell out this much money and then waiting 30 days to see if I can do it again.

If I can remove all of these thoughts in my head and only concentrate on the task at hand, I think I will be successful. Let me know when you are ready for to take this and I will send you my cards from the mnemosyne-project.org flash cards. I have created around 1500 of them and all are tagged and categorized. I would be more than happy to share them with anyone who needed them.

danny069

Why thank you I appreciate it. I'll be waiting to hear that you passed.

Humbe

Good luck with your exam.

Please let us know how you did.

TheProfezzor

Breadfan wrote: »

Thanks for the vote of confidence Danny. I will need it. I suck at test taking and will just have to FORCE myself to SLOW down and read the questions carefully. I have tripped myself in the past by not doing this and rushing through too quickly. I think the thing the makes me panic the most is having to pay for this exam TWICE. That is a lot of bread. I can take the disappointment. It's just having to shell out this much money and then waiting 30 days to see if I can do it again.

If I can remove all of these thoughts in my head and only concentrate on the task at hand, I think I will be successful. Let me know when you are ready for to take this and I will send you my cards from the mnemosyne-project.org flash cards. I have created around 1500 of them and all are tagged and categorized. I would be more than happy to share them with anyone who needed them.

I would love to have them as a study resource, if you may. Thank a lot.

sameoj

Breadfan wrote: »

Thanks for the vote of confidence Danny. I will need it. I suck at test taking and will just have to FORCE myself to SLOW down and read the questions carefully. I have tripped myself in the past by not doing this and rushing through too quickly. I think the thing the makes me panic the most is having to pay for this exam TWICE. That is a lot of bread. I can take the disappointment. It's just having to shell out this much money and then waiting 30 days to see if I can do it again.

If I can remove all of these thoughts in my head and only concentrate on the task at hand, I think I will be successful. Let me know when you are ready for to take this and I will send you my cards from the mnemosyne-project.org flash cards. I have created around 1500 of them and all are tagged and categorized. I would be more than happy to share them with anyone who needed them.

Kindly share the flash cards you have created.

Thanks in advance

Breadfan

@Humbe & Danny - Thanks for the well wishes....

@TheProfezzor & sameoj - I will gladly share my cards with you (and anyone else who may want them). The trick is getting them to you. With my coworkers, I have been emailing them to their gmail, live, etc. accounts. If you PM me yours, I will send them to you. I don't think there is a way to attach them here. The file sizes are minimal.

Just make sure you download the main program here: Download | The Mnemosyne Project
I have many tags and plugins that you can check (and uncheck) to make these cards work better for you. I have made them from the AIO, EC 2nd edition, and other places. Also, read up on how the different plug-ins work too. This program is nothing short of awesome. I hope these help you (and I find out in a few days if they've helped me, ).

Good luck, and I hope we ALL report back with a PASS....

cgrimaldo

I just started getting my feet wet recently with studying as well. Good luck to you!

Breadfan

Thanks cgrimaldo. What resources are you using? If you've read through all of these posts here, then you will see most (if not all) suggest the AIO 6th edition and Eric Conrad 2nd edition. I took a bootcamp at work and we had to read the Offical CBK. It was ok and I would put it somewhere between the AIO and EC's book in terms of readability and knowledge. I used as many sources as I could to get my weak sources down. Also, CCure's practice tests are great way to measure how you are doing. Clement is great.

Good luck....

cgrimaldo

Breadfan, I constantly browse the entire forum, especially this section (lol), for study materials and ideas from other folks. So far, I have purchased copies of most books listed (AIO, EC 2E,) as well as older copies of suggested books (2250 study questions for CISSP, ExamCram, etc). I purchased the paid CCCure quiz questions back in December but now have just gotten enough time to actually use it. Been through about 500 questions so far.

The Shon Harris is definitely a little drier than most books I have read so I have had a hard time stringing together long reading sessions. But, that could be because I have been so busy lately. I might make the switch to the Conrad book to see if that jump starts my studies again. I believe that is why the quizzes have been useful to me. I usually take 15 question quizzes because I find if I try to take a long quiz, I get interrupted. So, I am trying to think of it as my way of reviewing and still counting it towards productive study time.

I look forward to posting a "Congrats" here in this thread on the 14th!

billyr2009

Good luck breadfan on the 14th! Let us know how it goes!

impelse

Yes, Shon is very dry to reed, but it covers very important details.

I am reading three books at the same time for the same domain: Conrad, Sybex and Shon. It is hard that method but I discover I getting a lot of info when I am finishing the Sybex and Shon.

Also CCCure (paid) is good.

khiemkp

Waiting for you. Let's me know when you come back. Thanks

Breadfan

Just got back from the testing center and I PASSED!!!!!!!
As most people have said many times before, you DO NOT know if pass or fail when you get the results. I took 3 hours to go through everything and flagged a lot of questions for review later. Then I took a restroom break and came back and collected myself and started back. I went through all of the questions I either didnt answer before or flagged. I ended up changing many answers (even though they tell you not to). I could clearly see on my first go round that I was quite nervous about the knowledge transfer and time management.
I spent the remainder of my time SLOWLY going through the flagged ones and keeping answers flagged that I was still stumped on for further review. I figured if I ran out of time, at least I had an answer down and it wasnt blank. Before reaching the end of the flagged ones, I could feel my brain melting and my eyes crossing. I then reached the end, prayed to Jesus AGAIN and AGAIN, and pressed End Exam, not knowing what to expect.
When she handed me the paper, I turned it over, expecting the worst, but received the BEST news of my IT cert career thus far. Now, onto the endorsement process...

As far as the questions, they seemed fair but at the same time obscure (if that makes any sense). I had I think 4 drag/drop or hotspot questions. Ask me more questions (as long as they dont violate the NDA).

I'm off to eat a little and take a nap. Thanks to everyone who helped me on here and especially Johan for this website.

impelse

Congrats

TheProfezzor

Congratulations!. Just one question at the moment. Did you get many questions on cloud computing?. If yes, were the questions very generic in nature or complicated. Since, the books we are preparing from do not cover cloud computing in detail. Thanks for the reply.

billyr2009

Congrats Breadfan!! You said the questions seemed obscure. In what sense? There were multiple correct answers?

Breadfan

Thanks everyone. I've had 24 hours to process everything, and it still doesnt seem like I actually did it. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but for some reason it feels like if I blink, it didnt really happen. Silly, I know, but I worked really hard on this, and on some level it just doesnt seem possible that I was able to accomplish it. But, I am REALLY happy that I did.

TheProfezzor - you asked if I got questions on cloud computing? I did. Just a few. I hope I am not violating the NDA. If I am let me know and I will edit this. I also saw NO Orange Book questions (which was a relief to me) b/c no matter how hard I tried I could not seem to get the levels down.

billyr2009 - I didnt really mean "obscure". I could've still been in a brain meltdown mode after the test. I guess what I am trying to say, is that I was not expecting so many "wordy" questions. I mean some of them of them were HUGE. I didnt expect to see "what standard is Ethernet?" type of question on all of them. (BTW, that was just a hypothetical one, not a real test question, in case you were wondering).

I have the FREE Microsoft 74-409 Exam in a few weeks and I think that will be it for me a bit. I need to concentrate on a new work project, getting back into shape for shark & scuba diving this summer and yard work.

If any of you still want my Mnemosyne cards I will be happy to share those with you. Just PM me. Good luck to everyone taking this one

Meat

congrats

billyr2009

It's great to see you made Breadfan, opefully I will be with you in 2 weeks. Thanks for your input on the exam and good luck on your MS exam.

Breadfan

Thanks Billy. I am sure you will do fine. Just remember to keep studying your weak points, not forgetting the other stuff, and when you take the test itself, READ the question and go SLOWLY. Hopefully, you will report back a pass.

sojourn

Thanks for the info! Interesting re the Orange Book, that isn't the first time I've read that it hasn't been tested. I am sitting on May 1st and to be honest, the Orange Book stuff, I am just going to skip it and hope for the best, and spend my time concentrating on the stuff which has more real-world relevance. Congrats!!

Alamjan

Congrats !

victor58

Hi Breadfan, it would be great if you could share the flash cards. I have messaged you my email yesterday. Thanks

Dave.

Breadfan wrote: »

@Humbe & Danny - Thanks for the well wishes....

@TheProfezzor & sameoj - I will gladly share my cards with you (and anyone else who may want them). The trick is getting them to you. With my coworkers, I have been emailing them to their gmail, live, etc. accounts. If you PM me yours, I will send them to you. I don't think there is a way to attach them here. The file sizes are minimal.

Just make sure you download the main program here: Download | The Mnemosyne Project
I have many tags and plugins that you can check (and uncheck) to make these cards work better for you. I have made them from the AIO, EC 2nd edition, and other places. Also, read up on how the different plug-ins work too. This program is nothing short of awesome. I hope these help you (and I find out in a few days if they've helped me, ).

Good luck, and I hope we ALL report back with a PASS....

danny069

Breadfan, congrats and look out for those sharks