Pass CISSP Dec 1st

After studying for about 2 months i passed the test today on my first try.

Materials used:
- Eric Conrad 2nd Edition
- Official guide Cissp CBK
- This Forum

Practice test:
- McGraw Hill ( decent)
- CCure (waste of money)
- Trancenders (decent)
- Skillset (terrible)
- anything question bank i could get my hands on

Overall i thought the exam was quite challenging. I did all 250 questions with no breaks then reviewed all the flagged ones. There were questions from all 10 domains equally in my opinion. when studying i focused a lot on practice questions non of which resembled the style and difficulty of the real test so i would advice againts this strategy. focus more on the concepts. I think the exam would have been easier for me if i had studied using the Shon Harris book as it is more detailed. Anyway i'm glad this is behind me now on to the endorsement process. another tip read each question at least twice before answering. Thanks to everyone here on the forum.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

sherlee

Congrats, I heard there is some drag and drop questions. were there?

Congrats!

Congrats!

Congratulations!

Congrats!

Congrats, I know you will take a break, what's next?

dustervoice

Thanks... I'm looking into CISA or CISM but the those are in June next year.

CERTS4LADY

Congrats! Job well done

kawak_zx7

hi, congrats for passing the exam.

could you explain me why you felt that cccure is a waste of money?
my exam is a few days ahead and i am practising alot with cccure. it makes me kinda scary that i would be misleaded, found that most of this forum members do not even study with cccure.

please share your thought.

thanks.

smoten

Congrats man!!!! you did the wonderful job..... I am also on the same way could you please guide me for Transcender practice exam?

dustervoice

kawak_zx7 wrote: »

hi, congrats for passing the exam.

could you explain me why you felt that cccure is a waste of money?
my exam is a few days ahead and i am practising alot with cccure. it makes me kinda scary that i would be misleaded, found that most of this forum members do not even study with cccure.

please share your thought.

thanks.

Well i'm not the only one on the forum who feel this way about cccure questions.... They are way too technical for the test! not to say the questions are completely useless as they will verify your knowledge of what you read in the book but when compared to style and difficulty of the real test..... its is way off. MH questions and trancenders are a bit better but still not close to the real thing.

kawak_zx7

oh my God

what a shocking information! Since cccure forum members who passed the exam refer to practisetests.
And yeah, half of the questions are technical but the rest half questions are concept questions. And the explanation provided for every question is quite good though.

i also practice with Shon Harris Practice Exams, 2nd Guide, but i feel that it is too deep and too technical. The worst is the software development security part, tests me a lot with operating system and software terms. I even could not found the answers in Eric Conrad book at all. so i left this practice exam book.

I found a member in this forum too that referred me to this site: McGraw-Hill Education | CISSP Practice Exams.
is that website that you refer as Mcgrawhill test engine? It is free, and provided by Shon Harris too.

And can you please show me the link to Transcender test engine?

thanks.

dustervoice

Kawak_zx7 Don't get hung up on trying to get questions close to the test... there is none! Any question bank you can get your hands on will help in some form or another in grasping concepts. what you should aim for is understanding the concepts in that way you can answer any question that's asked on the real test. As mentioned before, the questions on the test are not super difficult its just a matter of understanding what they are asking. i've had some "questions" where i would look at the screen for 2 minutes wondering if it was a question or statement

There were also some technical ones as well i'm assuming those were the 25 that were not marked . To be honest, i think its the trial questions that leave a bad taste in your mouth. Hope this helps.

Trancenders(paid) : Transcender IT Certification Prep Training Products - Practice Exams and More

dustervoice

sherlee wrote: »

Congrats, I heard there is some drag and drop questions. were there?

yes there were a few of those... I believe they were "trial" questions as when i saw them i was like "WTF" i've need seen or read about this anywhere.... so i just had a guess.

kawak_zx7

dustervoice wrote: »

Kawak_zx7 Don't get hung up on trying to get questions close to the test... there is none! Any question bank you can get your hands on will help in some form or another in grasping concepts. what you should aim for is understanding the concepts in that way you can answer any question that's asked on the real test. As mentioned before, the questions on the test are not super difficult its just a matter of understanding what they are asking. i've had some "questions" where i would look at the screen for 2 minutes wondering if it was a question or statement There were also some technical ones as well i'm assuming those were the 25 that were not marked . To be honest, i think its the trial questions that leave a bad taste in your mouth. Hope this helps.

Trancenders(paid) : Transcender IT Certification Prep Training Products - Practice Exams and More

Hi clustervoice, thanks for your feedback.
i finally passed the test, and prove what you've said before. i totally agree with your exam experience. and the most important, cccure is a waste of money. i definitely agree with you, no chance that we will get a question close to the real test....but in the exam, i even have never heard about the topics or concepts that were being asked...as i was like lost in another exam. i felt really pissed off and almost cannot concentrate in the exam, because of why i have spent lots of my precious time to study from cccure, and not from shon harris book.
i just counted on my own experience, feeling and God Almighty help to nail that exam.
And yeah, thx for referring to mh quiz engine, i just had time to do 2 quizzes 2 days before the exam and yeah it helps me a lot. some questions similar to the exam shows in the real exam.

i will provide my complete exam review on separate thread.

thanks again.