CISSP Resources

I am looking at what resources to use to study for the CISSP I am after two books, some videos, pratcise test and some audio training.

Work are paying for the materials so I am not to worried about price I would just like to know which ones people would recommend the most.

I am after 2 books which ones of the below woul you guys recommend:

Books
Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK

Another Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK (is that the latest one?)

CISSP For Dummies

CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, Fifth Edition

CISSP: Certified Information Systems Security Professional Study Guide

Information Security Management Handbook, Sixth Edition, Volume 4

Videos

Shon Harris's CISSP Video Seminar

Shon Harris CISSP Training

CBTPlanet

KAllaiance

Sandline

PrepoLogic

Practice Tests

Some of these you pay a subscription I thinkk?
https://www.freepracticetests.org/quiz/index.php

Trancsender

CISSP Exampractice

Kaplan

PrepLogic

Studlscope

TestOut

Boson

Audio

Boson

PrepLogic

Audiocerts

So if you tell me which if the above you think is good and any others I have not mentioned that would be great,

Thanks

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Comments

rwmidl

For books, I used the Shon Harris AIO and CISSP for Dummies. Quite a few people swear by Official ISC(2) Study Guide.

For the practice tests, I would pay the USD $30 or whatever for the FreePracticeTests.org subscription. Personally I think it is worth it and helps you focus on your weak areas. I also bought one exam from Studiscope, as that really gave me an idea on where I stood in regards to being prepared.

Best of luck!

rob1234

rwmidl wrote: »

For books, I used the Shon Harris AIO and CISSP for Dummies. Quite a few people swear by Official ISC(2) Study Guide.

For the practice tests, I would pay the USD $30 or whatever for the FreePracticeTests.org subscription. Personally I think it is worth it and helps you focus on your weak areas. I also bought one exam from Studiscope, as that really gave me an idea on where I stood in regards to being prepared.

Best of luck!

Does the Shon Harris one also come with a CD-ROM and the book in PDF format?

The subscription one how many question does that give you access to?

Thanks,

rwmidl

rob1234 wrote: »

Does the Shon Harris one also come with a CD-ROM and the book in PDF format?

Yes, the Shon Harris book comes with a cdrom that has practice questions on it. As for does it contain a pdf of the book, a quick Amazon search says it does contain the ebook.

rob1234 wrote: »

The subscription one how many question does that give you access to?

If you are referring to the questions on freepracticetests.org, then if you pay for the subscription you get access to all questions. I think when I studied I did a total of 9000+ questions (granted some of them were repeats), but there are quite a few there.

Jinuyr

What's better, Shon Harris AIO or the Official ISC2 Book?

I was reading reviews and the worst one that worried me about the official book was for the pool of questions they ended up with in the exam, about only 10% of it was directly covered by the book after reading it five (5) times. I have yet to see a review that is that severe for Shon Harris.

flippedman

I would say Shon Harris' AIO 5th edition is a must-have. I also used Eric Conrad's 11th hour CISSP study guide, and I must say I found it to be concise, relevant, and almost complete.

MekoSuka

I recently took and passed the CISSP on my first try using only the following:

Shon Harris AIO 5th Edition
CISSP Practice Exams (Shon Harris)
(ISC)2 Official Study Guide

I did not take a bootcamp or any formalized training before the exam.

I read Shon Harris' AIO cover to cover over the course of a month, and then proceeded to drill myself with practice test after practice test over the next month before finally taking the exam.

The CISSP Practice Test book (also by Shon Harris) has a good amount of questions, but it comes with one thing that I felt set itself apart. There are instructions on where you can download about 3GB of audio MP3's which cover all domains from her book. I used these extensively while driving to/from work as a enforcement tool to my studying. As well, there is another 500 or so questions also available thru her site which you can use with the purchase of this book.

Finally, I used the Official Study Guide for its practice questions and to round out my studying.

On a side note, while not used extensively in my studying, I've found the NIST SP's (800-34, and 800-30 to be more specific) to be very helpful in gaining insight to areas where you may be a little unclear.

Jinuyr

Thanks for the advice MekoSuka, I have the same books so I will definitely put a lot of emphasis in completing those two.

lifecomm

Shon Harris AIO 5th edition
CISSP for Dummies

instant000

1. Shon Harris All in One
2. cccure.org (practice questions) -- the best I could find that had a free preview

If I could have done my preparation differently, I would have actually BOUGHT the questions at cccure.org, or somewhere else, instead of only doing their free questions.

I feel that the questions from Shon Harris were inadequate preparation for the type of questions on the exam ... but I passed, so maybe I'm wrong after all, LOL.

EDIT: A guy here at work swears by the official BOK.

MekoSuka

Jinuyr wrote: »

Thanks for the advice MekoSuka, I have the same books so I will definitely put a lot of emphasis in completing those two.

I do want to note that I have a background in IT of a little more than 10 years with most of the past 5 dealing directly with developing formalized compliance and security programs. In other words, I've had personal experience with much of the content on this exam. I believe this is where a large disparity comes from in the different resources recommended by people for this exam. What works for one person, may not be the best thing for someone else.

The one recommendation I can make in using the aforementioned resources is to set goals. Ensure you have a time line for everything leading up to the exam. People recommend 80% or better on all practice exams. That is what I consider one goal. Another might be to ensure you put in a good 60 minutes of studying a day. Having a plan is always a big key to being successful.