First of all a big thank you to all forum members for sharing your experiences which helped me a lot
I have 6 years experience in IT Security and studied for 3 months before giving this exam a go.
I DID NOT read any of the books as I started with Shon Harris and found it too verbose so quickly switched to following plan
1.) Watched CBT nuggets by Keith Barker - This is good for basic understanding. Does not go in depth
2.) Downloaded and read the CISSP combined notes from this forum - These are excellent
3.) Dived straight in to practice exams. I used the following
a.) CCCure paid version
b.) McGraw Hill exams -
McGraw-Hill Education | CISSP Practice Exams
c.) Eric Conrad exams -
Elsevier: conrad: CISSP Study Guide Practice Exams
4.) Most important step is to read explanations for the correct and incorrect answers. This helped me understand the subtle difference between various concepts which may not be clear from reading any books or watching nuggets
5.) Updated the combined notes with key points from step 4. Once all questions were done, memorized the combined notes till they were on the tip of my tongue
6.) Did all exams again which took me a week. Marked key questions for last day revision.
7.) Referred to Conrad for a couple of topics which were contradicting between the various practice exams
As far as the actual exam goes, my experience was key in answering many questions. As many have said before it is important to look at the big picture and not as a techie.
Took two 30 min breaks; one for lunch (after 150 questions) and second after completing all 250 questions. Used every minute of the 6 hours to finish reviewing about 70 flagged questions.
