Cissp

So after two + months of studying I finally sat the CISSP this morning. I finished in about 4 hours. The questions weren't as difficult as I was expecting, yet there were some where I had to give a "best guess". I "think" I passed but I'm not sure - I don't have this despair of failure yet I'm not confident enough to say I passed (if this makes any sense).

Study Plan

I've been in IT for over 10 years, working help desk, systems admin/security auditing/remediation to currently working with and writing security policies and GPO's (with some sys admin functions thrown in). My company brought in a trainer from G.K. to do a one week boot camp back in early January. I also used the Shon Harris AIO 5th edition, CISSP for Dummies and probably about 9000 or so questions from cccure.org (paid site). During the day when I had some free time I would do practice questions, and at night I would spend about an hour or so reading (maybe 2 hours a day on the weekends). I have a wife and two kids so I couldn't read until after the kids were in bed I only had about enough energy for an hour of reading. I also purchased one of the practice tests from CISSP. The first time I took it I scored a 60-something percent on it. I waited about a week and retook it a second time, giving myself time to focus on the questions as well as to "forget" any questions/answers (I've found sometimes with practice tests when you start to take them many times you begin to memorize the questions/answers). This time my score jumped to over 80%. I took it again the other day and my score jumped to the high 80% (the last time I went back to questions I marked for review, which I think brought my score up).

The Rub

So about half way through my studying I had a trip for Florida planned (this was planned well in advance of the class/test). I figured 3-4 days away from the books would do me good, and I did some reading on the drive down (my wife drove btw). When I got back, I got the flu! So I lost another week of studying while I was sick. When you have the flu, you don't feel like doing anything except sleeping.

I recovered fine from the flu and jumped back on the horse. Starting last weekend and through this week, I found myself really ready to get the test over with. Not that I was super confident that I was ready (I think I was as ready as I could get), but I was just tired of studying. Almost all my free time was spent reading, or doing practice questions. I was just burned out! This is probably typical (I guess) for most people who take this test.

The Test

As I said, not as bad as I thought/was expecting. There was very few questions that had not been covered in the AIO/Dummies/cccure.org. My strategy for taking the test was answer about 30 questions at a time in the book, then transfer them to the scantron form. Those questions I wasn't sure about I put a question mark (?) beside them. Those that I answered, once I transferred it to the form I scratched the question number so I knew which ones were transferred. I did the first 70, then jumped to the last questions and worked backwards. I have no clue why I decided to go that route.

I took one break to go to the restroom and that was it. We were allowed to have water/beverage at our spot as long as it had a lid on it. I brought water and snacks but left them in the back of the room. By the time I left probably less than 50% of the test takers were still in the room.

Now the fun part begins, the wait. It's good to see that the results are coming in fast. Hopefully I will get the congratulations email. The next time I could take the test in my city would be July. But frankly, I don't know if I would have it in me to study and take this test again. It's brutal!

Sorry if this has been a bit unorganized and rambling. My brain is kind of shot right now.