CISSP Pass 9/29/17

Background

I studied for 4 months, on average for an hour or two a day, depending on the amount of free time I had. Some days I wouldn't have much time but would still try to at least watch one 10 minute video on Cybrary. If i was reading, my goal would be 20-30 pages a day. I continued this slow and steady strategy til I had completed the Sybex guide, then took an initial practice test. I focused on my weakest areas from there with targeted reading and videos, and domain practice tests. The last thing I did was read the 11th hour guide a week out for a final review.

I've been in IT for 6 years, background in military, mainly networking.

Prep Materials:

-Sybex Study Guide & Official Practice Tests- Read through completely, and took both official practice tests, and domain and end of chapter tests.
-Eric Conrad 3rd Edition- Used as a secondary reference, to explain things more concisely when the explanation in Sybex was as dry as a bone.
-11th Hour - Read through completely a week before the test up to three days prior to test.
-Kelly Handerhan Videos- Watched over the course of study period. Very good videos, highly recommend watching the whole series, and free too!
-Sari Greene Videos- Watched the short version (6 hr course) with a 10 day free trial to SafariBooks about a month out. Good for hammering in some of those obscure frameworks and processes.
-CCCure Question Bank- bought the one month subscription. Questions not like those on the test, but good in my opinion for drilling in knowledge. Used professional and hard difficulties especially for domain specific exams to test knowledge.

The Exam:

Strategy

It took me 4 hours to complete. My strategy was the first pass through only answer everything I was absolutely certain was correct, and mark and come back to everything else. I was worried when I finished said pass through and had only answered 110 questions, but I was able to get that number down to a more manageable 60 after a second pass. I took one big break and went to the restroom and walked around at that point. Had some water & a snack, then came back. After that, I just duked it out and hoped that the 25 control questions were part of that number. It had to be, because there was some stuff that I had NEVER heard of before.

Content

I can state that I way over studied in some areas, and under-studied in others. Be very sharp on domains 1 & 8, and any material relating to cloud and web stuff. I had read all the "Passed CISSP" reviews over the past several months and agree with others in that this test is not like any one I've taken before. Very few questions are straightforward. You can usually throw out one answer immediately, but the three others will all look correct, and REALLY start running together after 150 or so of those. One more point of note, there were a few questions that were quite technical and not at all in the "mile wide, inch deep" philosophy, impossible to know whether they were controls or not. Definitely know the processes, standards and frameworks for anything listed in the CBK.

End

Glad its over! After knocking out the credentialing process and taking a nice long break from thinking about certification for a few months I will probably pursue CCNP.:)

-Lefty