CISA PASSED - my first ISACA exam

vndunnovndunno Member Posts: 5 ■□□□□□□□□□
Hi all
I have just seated for the CISA exam today and passed it. As a thank you for all help from this community, I put my feedback on the exam as below for your reference if needed.
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Exam preparation:
- I had 3 months focusing on CISA subjects with 1 latest week fulltime focusing on learning.
- My studying materials and method as below:
  • Reading David Canon’s Book: “Certified Information Systems Auditor Study Guide-4thEdition” Cover to back to understand the concept and ISACA mindset. It took me totally 1 month to cover all pages of this book. Practice with the questions banks at the beginning and after each chapter.
  • Reading CISA Review manual 2014 (I don’t have the 2017 version, 2014 version is my latest one I have so I decided to use that document). I had taken 2 weeks to cover all the content of this book (only focused on session two – content of each chapter). Doing practice with questions banks at beginning of each chapters and case study questions at end of them.
  • Watching cybraryit video with free CISA online course conducted by Polymath and listens again with audio file from those lessons when have time. All can be downloaded from https://www.cybrary.it/
  • Doing adaptive learning with ISACA questions banks (you can get it from search keyword CISA_2016_Setup). 40 questions at least every day, try to understand the explanation of every wrong questions.
    • Try to solve all unseen questions from this bank this bank have totally 999 questions at this time)
    • My trying is about 450+ times for each chapters (Try to do again wrong questions until you are really understand the explanation and doing right
  • The latest week before the exam, I took leave and focused full time on studying.
  • Review a key concepts highline from reading materials (you can get the good reference of CISA learning notes from this link https://www.mindmeister.com/401820678/isaca-cisa-study-guide-mind-map)
  • Doing the practice exam (full 4 hours with 150 questions form ISACA question bank above) everyday
  • Doing the practice exam from sybextestbanks.wiley.com (150 questions on 4 hours as well)
  • I did the practice exam with same time range with my registered exam time. (I chose the exam time on 1:30PM on Friday so practicing every day on 1:30 to 4:30 made me feeling more convenience on the exam day).
  • Review the flash card from sybextestbanks.wiley.com
Exam content taken:
- There is no any question on the practice question bank is fully matched the actual exam questions but there have some questions with similar situations (for example how to do when auditor finds a finding during audit, the choosing of alternative site, how to handle with audit remediation action that overdue…). So practicing in the question bank is really help me to quickly solve family content
- Almost all (I think 90%) questions in my exam is related to audit progress, governance, and IT process and management activities. Very little amount of questions directly related to technical perspective.
- I took 3 hours to answer all 150 questions with about 50 questions marked to review (flag out). Those 50 questions I was not sure about answer or event didn’t really understand what they want to ask (English is my second language and some exam questions was challenging to me). After that, I went out site for a few minutes relax and went back to review the marked questions.
- The CBT exam provides features of listing your questions, finding flagged questions, navigate back and forward… so it is very convenience for you to review the questions if you have free time.
- There was some networking issue during my exam and they made delay on loading some questions. However, the exam time is not effected by that issue because it is only counted when the question is loaded and showed on the screen. So please patient on that J
- Other good thing of CBT exam is that you got the result right after you finish all questions and submit them. No need to wait for long time as paper exam.

After all, thanks all help from this forum and community. Hope to see more and more PASSED sharing in the future.

Comments

  • tphan3tphan3 Member Posts: 39 ■■□□□□□□□□
    Congratulations! I notice you have CCSP, which is something I am aiming for. How would you compare the difficulty of the CCSP to CISSP and to CISA? Is the CCSP more technical focused?
  • vndunnovndunno Member Posts: 5 ■□□□□□□□□□
    Oh, I forgot to change the cert name. It is Cisco's old name for CCNP Security, not the ISC2's CCSP one. I have a plan to take ISC2 CCSP next year also. So please keep update.
  • justdaveyjustdavey Member Posts: 40 ■■□□□□□□□□
    Congrats on the pass - lots of ressources mentionned!
  • greg9891greg9891 Member Posts: 1,189 ■■■■■■■□□□
    Congrats on the pass!icon_thumright.gif
    :
    Upcoming Certs: VCA-DCV 7.0, VCP-DCV 7.0, Oracle Database 1Z0-071, PMP, Server +, CCNP

    Proverbs 6:6-11Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, Which, having no captain, Overseer or ruler, Provides her supplies in the summer, And gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard?
    When will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep, So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler And your need like an armed man.
  • clarkincnetclarkincnet Member Posts: 256 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Congrats!
    Give a hacker an exploit, and they will have access for a day, BUT teach them to phish, and they will have access for the rest of their lives!

    Have: CISSP, CISM, CRISC, CGEIT, ITIL-F
  • janus512janus512 Member Posts: 7 ■□□□□□□□□□
    I know this is an old thread, but I there is a new CISA study audio book on audible.com - "Essential CISA".
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