Should I retake the exam ASAP?

rollenation · January 2012

Hi All, I figured I should start my own and not hijack another member's thread, so I'll post my questions here.

I took the Toronto exam on Dec 17 and failed to pass with a score of 648. There's another exam that's taking place February 4th so I'm wondering if 648 good enough to really consider retaking it immediately? Or should I go back to the drawing board and schedule it for the May 4th one?

SCALED SCORE
Your Score: 648
Passing Score: 700

DOMAIN PERFORMANCE
Access Control (4)
Telecommunications & Network Security (4)
Information Security Governance & Risk Management (2)
Application Development Security (7)
Cryptography (8 )
Security Architecture & Design (3)
Operations Security (1)
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Planning (9)
Legal, Regulations, Investigations & Compliance (6)
Physical (Environmental) Security (10)

What upsets me the most about the rankings is that I really thought I would be OK with the Physical and BC/DRP domains so I didn't put a high emphasis on it when I was studying. I ended up pumping my studying time on cryptography and Application Development (which I knew going in would be my worst two).

Any thoughts? Should I study hard the next 3 weeks and go for it this February or just lay low for a while and consider retaking in May?

I also read the CIB, while there are some changes, I don't think it's significant enough for me to consider waiting til later to just get more up-to-date study materials to cover them. Thanks all and congrats to all that passed! I hope one day to be part of this elite group!

ZekeCISSP · January 2012

I was lucky enough to pass my first time so I really don't speak from experience, but I am not someone who walked out 'knowing' I passed so I considered this scenario. I realized it would be about a month before I heard either way and I considering continuing to study some in that time to keep it fresh, but I didn't. If I failed, I knew I would want to retest within a month, but that's based on me wanting this cert to be qualified for a job within my company that is possibly coming open soon.

The other factor relevant to my situation is I have a lot of experience in many of the domains. Experience doesn't always related to knowing the answers on a certification test, but it does provide a foundation that allows me to relate to the material better than someone without the experience. One more thing I'll add is in response to your comment that you thought you would be ok in Physical and BC/DRP. The thing to remember is there weren't that many question on these areas (on my test at least) compared to other domains. I believe these rankings are based on percentages. So, if there were five questions and you missed four of them, you missed 80% of them. I believe the 'easier' domains are often underestimated and dismissed.

To your real question, my opinion is that two-three weeks of a couple of hours a night of quality study time is more than enough to make up the amount of points you missed the mark by. You have the experience of the test now so possible questions will be more obvious to you so you can focus in on what to study better.

Good luck

rollenation · January 2012

Thanks for the advise Zeek. I really only started studying for a month and a half and like I said, I focused on the ones I knew I would be struggling on (cryptography and application sec). Hopefully the next few weeks is enough to make up for the points I need to pass. I just booked it for Feb 4th.

I did notice that a lot of the times with the way the questions are structured, I end up relying a lot on my experience as a security analyst or end up asking myself, "what would my manager do in this situation".

So for the next 3 weeks I will be a hermit and study as hard as I can. One good thing is that my cccure account is still valid for 2 more months! lol

TBRAYS · January 2012

rollenation wrote: »

Thanks for the advise Zeek. I really only started studying for a month and a half and like I said, I focused on the ones I knew I would be struggling on (cryptography and application sec). Hopefully the next few weeks is enough to make up for the points I need to pass. I just booked it for Feb 4th.

I did notice that a lot of the times with the way the questions are structured, I end up relying a lot on my experience as a security analyst or end up asking myself, "what would my manager do in this situation".

So for the next 3 weeks I will be a hermit and study as hard as I can. One good thing is that my cccure account is still valid for 2 more months! lol

Retake as soon as possible, while the information is fresh in your head even though each test is different, brush up on your weak domains and quiz, quiz, quiz and quiz yourself exhaustively.

spicy ahi · January 2012

TBRAYS wrote: »

Retake as soon as possible, while the information is fresh in your head even though each test is different, brush up on your weak domains and quiz, quiz, quiz and quiz yourself exhaustively.

+1 to this. Unless you totally bomb your first attempt, the typical recipe for success is to retake as soon as possible and focus on your deficiencies since it's fresh in your mind. I've followed this rule successfully many times.

ZekeCISSP · January 2012

rollenation wrote: »

I did notice that a lot of the times with the way the questions are structured, I end up relying a lot on my experience as a security analyst or end up asking myself, "what would my manager do in this situation".

I think this "manager think" as I call it serves you well in the test. However, I also think (ISC)2 takes advantage of it sometime and you really have to refer back to and trust your studying-gut. I've told a few people since the exam that sometimes there are two of the four answers that are close and could go either way and that's where you have to sometimes put on your manager hat. Of course, sometimes one of them is the throw away. And then, there are some answers that are what I call "common-sense wrong." This is the answer someone might select that hasn't studied as much (at least not that area) if they were totally guessing because it seems like common sense, but not to the CISSP. I'm not good with examples, but that's seems to be what I recall.

Good luck again. Now quit reading this forum and get back to studying

knthng · January 2012

I think it depends on the person. If you're already burnt out and cant stand to read or review more CISSP material, I'd say take a break. It is better to rest up and fresh up your mind than gunning it and fail again. Some people may need it for their job so have no choice but to retake asap. If you can still retain the information and have the energy to retake it asap, go for it. That's just my 2 cent.

Lancelot56 · February 2012

San Antonio? That's where I booked for the 4th. I have been supplementing my studying (Darril's SSCP book and Shon Harris's Video) using cccure, do you consider them (cccure) reliable? I see questions that seem outdated and very specific as far as what applications will do what. However, I'm picking up a lot of new information. Just MHO. I paid for the 3 assessment test's from ISC2 and I'm close but not quite passing. They seem hard when compared to the other study material test's, that could be a good thing.

ZekeCISSP · February 2012

I used the cccure website along with some other testing sources like the questions in Shon Harris's AIO book. I found the same thing with cccure, but I tried to weed through the questions by searching for the ones I missed in the AIO book. If I couldn't find the answer I usually wrote it off, but not always. When I did find the answer, I would read that area of the book..sometimes the paragraph, sometimes a few pages, sometimes more...depending on how I felt about that material and how much I thought I might see it on the test. For instance, firewalls are not my strong suit and I anticipates a couple of questions dealing with firewalls so I would linger on that area of the book a couple of times.

This worked for me...your mileage may vary.

Good luck

Should I retake the exam ASAP?

Comments