Passed - Process Overview

I passed a couple days ago. Here's my review FWIW.

Background: I've been in IT for 10 or so years. A few years of risk and sys admin/network work. A few C* certs.

Prep: Cybrary. CISSP Official Study Guide 7th Edition. The new Official Practice Tests. CISSP CBK (2nd Edition) just to research a few topics more in-depth, as I bought this years ago when I was thinking about sitting. Materials Review: The CISSP CBK was horrible and had a plethora of just plain wrong information. Cybrary information is solid but did not have much *new* information (I watched it after reading the 7th edition) but it does have a lot of good testing strategies and overviews of key concepts. If you are new to infosec, I would start at Cybrary for a foundation and then move to a book and reinforce with practice tests. 7th edition covered about 60-70% of what I saw in the exam. The new practice questions were great to get me into the mindset and reinforce topics. This helped with an additional 15-20% of exam material and supplemented the 7th Edition quite nicely. 10% or so was not covered at all in my materials.

All in all, I prepped casually for 3.5 months w/ some breaks.

Exam: I definitely over-studied but I prefer to do this and not sweat it during the exam. My exam focused significantly (25% or so) in areas barely mentioned in any of the materials. At least not to the point of spelling out the answer. While I felt the exam not super-difficult, I can see given the common and recommended texts as causing those new, or with heavily operations roles as having difficulties with the exam.

I can definitely say I told myself numerous times to "not overthink" as recommended by Kelly Handerhan (Cybrary) and this was valuable, as I could probably talk myself out of numerous answers. Don't waste your time remembering super detailed intricacies of much, be exposed, but focus on high-level concepts and how all the parts of a security program work together.

EOT

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Comments

danny069

Congrats! Thanks for the write up! What's next for you, and also, what practice questions are you talking about? The ones online from Sybex?

gncsmith

Congrats!

ilikeshells

danny069 wrote: »

Congrats! Thanks for the write up! What's next for you, and also, what practice questions are you talking about? The ones online from Sybex?

I'm not sure what's next. I don't have any SANS certs, so I'm thinking maybe GWAPT, GPEN, or GCIH.

I did both the 7th Edition and the "new" Official Practice Tests questions. I really thought the new Official Practice Tests helpful, not to say the questions in the 7th edition aren't good. Do both.

. The Official Practice Tests gives access to a decent GUI that is better than the 7th edition.

gncsmith wrote: »

Congrats!

Thanks! Much appreciated.

DAVIS NGUYEN

Congrats!

sameoj

Congrats