CISSPassed?
Well, I sat for the CISSP this past Saturday April 30th in College Park, MD. I felt pretty good taking the test, and felt pretty good coming out of the exam location, so hopefully that is a good indication that I passed. I feel like I was able to spot the 'tricks' they used in asking questions; although pretty much all the questions felt tricky to me.
What can I say about the exam? This may be a little weird, but it was just fun to take it, and fun to test myself and my mental capacities. It truly is a comprehensive exam and hopefully the hard work of 3+ months of pure studying will pay off. You reap what you sow, and man did I sow...a lot.
I'll briefly mention some things I did to prepare, but don't want to go into a full blown study plan until I get notification, because then it won't help anyone.
Main Study Material:
Primary - Shon Harris AIO 5th ed
Secondary - ISC2 Study guide
Tertiary - Eric Conrad CISSP Study Guide
Other: VTE web courses
Opinion - If I had to do it all over again I would STILL use the AIO as my primary and supplement even more with Eric Conrad's book, I barely used the ISC2 study guide, it just didn't read well although I'll probably use it as a reference in the future. Conrad's book was very good in tightening up the concepts and last-week preparation.
How I studied:
My biggest worry was how to remember EVERYTHING, but, Thank God, I came across a special study method in Wired magazine titled "Want to remember everything you've ever learned?". It was an article about the SuperMemo study method, which I will get into later. It worked much more than I anticipated.
In my opinion, the biggest thing you can do to prepare for this exam is five-fold (in no particular order):
1) KNOW HOW YOU STUDY, taking notes works for me so I stuck with that, and the supermemo method includes a varied way of breaking down the information for memory retention and recall.
2) PLAN YOUR WORK and WORK YOUR PLAN. Come up with a study plan beforehand and stick with it. More on this later.
3) SET GOALS. I would even say set some crazy goals, that's the only way you'll study your hardest. For example, I set the goal of "Being the first person to score a 100% on the CISSP". Mind you, this is probably very unrealistic, but each time I caught myself studying "just to pass" I reminded myself of my goal and I felt guilty about not studying my hardest.
4) YOUR LIFE IS MORE THAN THE CISSP. This should probably be at the top of the list. I honestly felt that I invested some of my soul into this exam and it got to a point where I thought "What am I going to do if I don't pass?". Well, I'll tell you right now, I corrected myself and my thought processes and said to myself "The same thing I always do, and that's enjoy life" (although I reminded myself I still wanted it....bad).
5) DO THINGS TO KEEP YOURSELF SANE. I really enjoy kickboxing, so I stuck with that 2x week to keep my fitness level up and to break up the time. Keeps the blood flowing to the brain too.
Well, hopefully I won't have to wait 4+ weeks to hear results, because even though I am confident, my biggest worry is that I made stupid mistake like putting my first name last and last name first on the scantron.
More later.
