Passed the CISSP – Thank you Braindumps!
Okay, okay, put the flamethrowers away. The braindump comment was a joke! There are like 20 “Passed” threads today, so I thought I’d try some creative advertising!
I did pass last Thursday, and that’s definitely not a joke! I owe everyone who contributes to this forum a huge debt of gratitute.
So, in an effort to pay that goodwill forward, here’s the breakdown of my exam prep and test experience:
My Background
I’ve got 15+ years of work experience. I started my career in semiconductor design, designing network-related ASICs such as switch fabrics, RAID controllers, packet forwarding engines, traffic managers, and ATM SARs.
Over the years, I gradually shifted from the hardware side of networking to the software. I currently work for a multicore processor company and I support customers who use it for crypto acceleration and various kind of deep packet inspection.
Why did I decide to pursue the CISSP?
My job doesn’t require CISSP certification, but all the customers I work with are designing IDS/IPS systems, SSL proxies, and secure web gateways. Since I spend all my time working in network security anyways, I decided to pursue the CISSP.
I didn’t want the CISSP to land a new job, rather I wanted to increase the breadth of my understanding of the security industry.
My goal was not to find the fastest way to add the title “CISSP” to my resume. My goal has always been to gain a holistic understanding of security – to learn more about those domains that I don’t touch in my job. This means I wasn’t trying to cram for the exam or look for ways to skip topics that might not show up on the test. To the contrary, I wanted to drill down into the nuts and bolts of every domain.
How long did I prepare?
About 9 months. Because of work and family, I couldn’t carve out 4 hours of study time per day even if I wanted to. So I studied whenever I could for as long as I could. Somedays not all, other days for an hour or two. I knew that preparing for this exam would be a marathon, not a sprint. That prevented me from getting frustrated or giving up. Slow and steady but eyes always on the prize.
Study Material
All In One – read the whole thing, cover to cover.
Sybex CISSP Study Guide (by Stewart) – read 80%
The Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK (Hernandez) – cover to cover
CISSP Study Guide (by Conrad) – cover to cover
CISSP 11th Hour (by Conrad) – cover to cover
And a ton of supplemental online research such as tutorials and whitepapers from various sites
My studying process when something like this:
1. Start with Conrad’s CISSP Study Guide. I’d structure my notes to follow topics in the order he covered.
2. Read the same chapter in AIO and updated my notes
3. Read the ISC Official Guide and Sybex – filling in my notes even further
You can see why it took my 9 months to prepare for this exam. For each domain I was reading 4 different books and taking notes. It took a long time and my notes for each domain were typically 50+ pages. But each author covers topics in a slightly different way, and that really helped solidify my understanding.
I tried watching videos and listning to MP3s, but they covered the material too slowly. Books were a more efficient way to learn for me.
Practices Tests Used
McGraw Hill online – took both quizes x 10 domains = 1000 questions
Shon Harris CISSP Practice Exam Book (3rd Edition) – Completed about 500 questions
Transcender – Completed 750 questions
SSI Logic’s CISSP Exam Book – 500 questions
CCCure (paid) – Completed 1800 questions
Conrad/Elvisier – took both sample tests – 500 questions
I’ve listed the tests in the order of effectiveness. I definitely felt McGraw Hill tests were the toughest. The 3rd Edition of the Shon Harris book is also very good, followed by Transcender.
Exam Experience
I took the exam last Thursday and also took the day before (Wednesday) off to prepare. What I didn’t do on Wednesday was lock myself in a room and cram. I stayed home, reviewed my notes and took a practice test. But I took long breaks, relaxed and because it was a nice day, I fired up the barbeque, grilled steaks and had a nice sit-down dinner with my wife and kids. Did I do this because I was so confident that I didn’t think I had to study? Not at all. I was nervous and worried I wasn’t ready. But I told myself that if I wasn’t ready after 9 months preparing, what difference would one more day of cramming make? So I decided not to spend the day stressed out. I was going to have a nice evening with my family and do my best to relax.
I took this approach because I felt an overlooked component of this exam is mental preparedness. I think it’s underestimated how important it is. The CISSP has a reputation of being a difficult exam and I think some folks let that reputation psych them out. They get so worked up, its like the exam has beaten them before they even take it! I told myself that I might not pass on Thursday, but I wasn’t going to let this test punk me. I respected the exam, but I wasn’t scared of it. So I had a nice dinner, put my kids to sleep, reviewed my notes and was asleep by 10pm.
I woke up, had a good breakfast, packed some fruit, energy bars and water and left for the test center. I didn’t look at any CISSP material at all. On the way the test center, I rolled down the car windows, cranked some Imagine Dragons and RUN-DMC and made it to the test center in 20 minutes.
Registration went really quick and next thing I knew, I was sitting behind the computer while the proctor got the test started. It was game time.
What did I think of the exam? It had it’s challenging moments, but overall it wasn’t nearly as hard as I had expected. If anything, I was over-prepared. I’m not saying the test was easy, nor should anyone think this material comes easy to me or that I have a photographic memory. Not the case at all. If you gave me 2 months to prepare, I probably would have found the test a lot harder. So the point I’m making is, the test isn’t hard if you put the required time and effort in. If you have an abreviated prep schedule, then sure, it’s going to be more challenging.
I completed all 250 questions in 3 hours, no break and I didn’t skip a single question. I did flag 100 questions. Yes, that’s a lot. But my strategy for flagging questions was this: unless I was absolutely sure I had the right answer, I flagged the question. So that meant, of the 250 questions, I had no doubt about my answers to 150 of the questions. This is the reason I felt the test wasn’t so hard. I was expecting every question to be a battle, but it turned out 150 were straight forward. I also kept track of how much time I was spending on the questions. After every 30 questions, I’d note the elapsed time and calculate the average time per question. For most of the exam I was averaging 40 seconds/question, which is much, much faster than I was expecting. In some cases, I could predict what the right answer was while I was reading the question. I could tell, just from the question setup what I was going to be asked. I’m sure folks have had this same feeling while taking the practice quizes.
Of the 100 I marked, I’d say there were 30 I really shouldn’t have flagged at all. But I was flagging a lot of questions at the beginning of the exam because I was a little nervous. But once I reviewed them, I was sure the answers were right.
Of the remaing 70, I’d say there were only 6 questions that I couldn’t narrow the choice down to 2 correct answers. And I was pretty sure those 6 were experimental because they just seemed odd or different.
So after spending another 1 hour reviewing the 100 flagged questions, I stopped. I knew I had passed because the I put the remaining 70 flagged questions in the “50/50” category. Which meant that there was a 50/50 chance I got the question right. So I assumed I’d get 35 of these right and miss 35. That meant I had 215 questions right, and 35 wrong. Which gave me a pretty good feeling I passed.
I realize these are all just estimates. I probably missed some of the ones I felt very confident about, and maybe I missed more than 35 in the “50/50” pool. But I knew 50 of the questions wouldn’t count, and my “gut” just told me many of those experimental questions were in my 50/50 list. So at the 4 hour mark, I ended the exam. Went to the proctor, who slipped me the paper with the good news.
Q & A For Those Preparing To Take The Exam
Question: What domains can I skip? Which domain did you see the most questions from?
Answer: I can’t give breakdowns, obviously. But I will say this: MAKE SURE YOU STUDY ALL 10 DOMAINS. I saw questions from all domains. Review the CIB and the CBK – everything, and I do mean everything, is fair game.
Question: This exam is all about thinking like a manager right? High level concepts right?
Answer: Personally, I don’t think the “know the concepts” advice is very useful. I mean, what’s the alternative? To NOT study the concepts?!? So of course you need to know the concepts – that’s so obvious, it’s of no value.
But if you think just knowing concepts is going to be good enough, you will find yourself in trouble on this exam my friend. “Think like a manager” ain’t gonna save you. Some of the questions I got were very, very technical. Deep dives in technology. So again, my advice is the same – know all topics in the CBK. Don’t assume anything is out of bounds.
Question: Should I use practice questions? Some people say they are a waste of time
Answer: Everyone is different, but the practice questions helped me immensely. You should do at least 2000, half of which should be full 250 question tests that you sit through to build stamina.
And here’s the most important piece of advice I can pass along regarding practice quizes: MAKE SURE YOU REVIEW ANSWERS FOR QUESTIONS TO GOT WRONG AND RIGHT
I spent a lot more time reviewing my answers than I did taking the test. And why is it important to review the answers even for questions you got right? Because during the quizes, I’d have to guess on some of the answers. Just because I guessed right doesn’t mean I knew the answer. So if you happen to guess right, go back and review.
Can I PM you for your study notes or transcender login? Can you mail me all the books the bought?
Answer: Sure! Of course! Is there anything I can get you while I’m at it?
And don’t worry, I won’t cut-and-paste your PM into a forum post so everyone knows who’s asking.
Best of luck to everyone who is preparing! Remember - calm down, don't get your undies in a bunch, it's just a test. No big deal.
Special thanks to PapaDoc for his write up and continued support of all of us who were preparing.
