ISSEP passed 16-april-2015 Pakistan

Yes I passed the exam.

How? 7-month time prep
8000+ pages cover by cover reading (single pass)
NO MCQ's , or quiz

Experience I don't have any direct or indirect experience dealing with USG or DoD for that matter. For me the experience was more of an outsider view or prescriptive of what goes internal to USG,DOD and fed agencies organization and their processes and procedures.

Magic trick? There is any. Beside I printed 15k Rp of material mentioned in CIB. Read cover to cover, page by page and made no NOTES. Actually 2-week before exams I was watching tv all day and night. The only trick I say that worked for me, was my confidence after reading the system-engineering and esp the DoDAF and DoD handbooks and reference guide I knew I had chewed / absorbed enough knowledge and understanding to attempt the exam. and NO i didn't commit anything to MEMORY don't remember making a single note. Why? Because memorization felt self-defeating approach If you ever tried to compare issep/dod-life-cycle/iso-iec 17024 side by side you would know how REAL the pain really feels like:). I relied on my conceptual awareness of topics as a substitute to memorization.

My analysis Paper far easy then CISSP. Surprised I was too, when how easily I breezed through first 25 questions
questions, I have heard many horror stories of some of the high-profile candidates(in terms of their certification and experience) from the site that the exam being most difficult they took in their professional career. As I mentioned surely this wasn't the case for me..I was just lucky or prepared myself to the point that I made the exam look easy or perhaps the question bank selected for me was of easy grading. But at the end as with most things in life your luck, faith and prayers makes all the difference.

ISSEP certified candidates I'm in the process of endorsement now. I have been told that I need to have 2 years of min experience in one of the domains of ISSEP. For e.g under technical management what would qualifies as appropriate work to be considered valid for fulfillment of necessary experience requirement. Any example may help. For example would writing of rfp along with procurement and acquisition experience count as valid?

I'm open to any questions, feedback and review related to this exam please feel free to ask.

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Comments

zxbane

Congrats, I know it is supposed to be a monster of a test. As far as why you pursued it, why the deep interest in what goes on internally with USG, DoD and Fed Gov. agencies?

TheFORCE

But at the end as with most things in life your luck, faith and prayers makes all the difference.

You seemed like a bright individual and as someone that knows what he was talking about until you said the above sentence. Congratulations on your exam by the way. But really luck, faith or any type of prayers don't make all the difference in your life. If and when you know something then you will able to answer your questions. Is there luck in the process? Yes there is, its called probability and statisics. If you eliminate any of the incorrect answers your probability of selecting the right answer increases by the same percentage. You can have faith and pray but that won't help you get the right answers or have any effect in your life. You put in the work, studying for 7 months, read all those books. Be proud of your effort and hard work. Pays off more than faith and praying.

E Double U

TheFORCE wrote: »

If and when you know something then you will able to answer your questions. Is there luck in the process? Yes there is, its called probability and statisics. If you eliminate any of the incorrect answers your probability of selecting the right answer increases by the same percentage. You can have faith and pray but that won't help you get the right answers. You put in the work, studying for 7 months, read all those books. Be proud of your effort and hard work. Pays off more than faith and praying.

Agreed!

1. Study only = Pass
2. Study + Prayer = Pass
3. Prayer only = No Pass

The two options for passing have only one thing in common.

dou2ble

Congrats! I'm one that believes faith and prayer does have an effect in my life. In addition to putting our faith into action, which in this case equals studying.

justjen

Faith and prayer can make a difference, if only that it can reduce the stress level and anxiety. My mother always said God helps those who help themselves. You have to do the studying and work to prepare, but faith can lead to a calmer state of mind, which can only be a benefit.

Congrats on your successful pass!

beads

Keep in mind that people who took, suffered and past on an awful lot of information your reading did so with minimal assistance. Your indicating some several thousand pages of material. What if all you had to go by was the first CBK and candidate bulletin and nothing else?

Think of a time when there was no one to ask about the exam or what did you use to study as these people were not there to ask in the first place.

How about a time before Tech Exams was even an Internet board or web page? Did you think it was always this easy to pass these exams or has your swelling pride blocked out your own eyesight? You passed an exam not only due to your own abilities but do to a great deal of hard work and knowledge transfer by your predecessors.

Perhaps you just got lucky and guessed well enough to pass even with all the posts, materials and guidance available to you. Information not available to those who took the exam a decade ago. Those people who passed concentrations back then just must have been lucky. Got it!

Guessing through observation that the ratio of those passing these exams is going up due to the amount of information available to the candidates, though I haven't looked lately. Years back when I took the -ISSAP exam I was told there were two candidates - that year. Today there is someone announcing a concentration on this board about once a month.

Yep! Sure is an easy exam now isn't it?

- b/eads

mjsinhsv

Congratulations on the pass.

Just wondering, but why would someone pursue that cert with no DOD experience?
I thought that cert was designed for 8570 level III requirements.

asadzz

zxbane wrote: »

Congrats, I know it is supposed to be a monster of a test. As far as why you pursued it, why the deep interest in what goes on internally with USG, DoD and Fed Gov. agencies?

Thanks for the msg. For ans to questions

#1. I had the choice between ISSAP/ISSEP/ISSMP and I went solely for ISSEP because it brought me closer to long time dream of really understanding and being knowledgeable about what goes in/out in rergard to security affairs /decision and interaction when doing work with USG,DoD or Fed Gov agencies. The entire structure its layout really fascinated me. It gives me "kicks" . Yes odd thing to say but if you have time to read DoD acquisition framework documents and Blanchard books I say its pure thrill and very magical in many orders. It took me to places which I didn't knew existed ; the concepts, the terminological, viewpoints, architecture , disciplines and "working style" of how security is framed in each and every facet of operations, planning and execution is just too powerful and yes beautiful. It has an aesthetic value. ISSEP is all about that. The aesthetics. The certification material makes the subject come alive it had no PLASTIC feeling...reading the USG policies and esp around FISMA policies part - the information security program and the evaluation through C&A process makes everything jells in, the integrated picture how every unit, sub-units operate to achieve a higher function / objectives for a master system which is in place to ensure that the ultimate goal of institutionalizing a secure life-style manner of ops is realized; the stuff just too powerful to be not admired. It sinks you in!

No one ever explained what "risk analysis" really means until i start reading the books from CIB esp the DoD concept for it call it "future root cause analysis". There difference between issues and risks. Its profound. I was the Alice and to me this whole arena felt like "a big beautiful wonderland that I want to explore". ISSEP was my way of entering the "rabbit hole" as to say.;). Further, doing /reading /researching the content of the certs makes me somewhat part on achieving the 'American dream'.:) After doing the cert, I feel have a real great story to tell to the WORLD(sec folks in large).!

#2 After passing CISSP, on theory 100/100 when it comes to actual implementation I always faced difficulties in applying knowledge into real world. ISSEP solved the problem like no other cert I ever went for. Suddenly, I have no more of headaches when I want to differentiate between "needs" and "wants" ....and esp the term "Requirements" and how big of impact it has on performing the right amount ,level,type and amount of security work. You read the docs Protection needs elicitation, Information protection needs and IMM they are real problem solvers. It works simply put I see to any organization problem, in daily work and I apply the ISSEP concepts and the fog of confusion and disorder just goes away.

Hope this answers you.

asadzz

TheFORCE wrote: »

You seemed like a bright individual and as someone that knows what he was talking about until you said the above sentence. Congratulations on your exam by the way. But really luck, faith or any type of prayers don't make all the difference in your life. If and when you know something then you will able to answer your questions. Is there luck in the process? Yes there is, its called probability and statisics. If you eliminate any of the incorrect answers your probability of selecting the right answer increases by the same percentage. You can have faith and pray but that won't help you get the right answers or have any effect in your life. You put in the work, studying for 7 months, read all those books. Be proud of your effort and hard work. Pays off more than faith and praying.

True. I know what are your saying it makes sense. As they say for each its own. Perhaps this might explain the three words combination. These x3 no matter in what order or presence of magnitude does have a REAL roles in defining the lives and shaping the world we live in. Start anywhere from great conquest Christopher Columbus, how the ENGIMA machine was broken and to great scientific inventions of last centuries these "elements" have their role the only part that is not understood is one which perhaps cannot be documented mathematical, equated or analyzed as scientifically as we HUMAN want the black and white.

I had marked / commented 15 questions out of 150 for end-time review. With 30 min left and done with first pass I decided to go back and revisit the marked ones. I tell the exam engine to show me MARKED ones. It showed NOTHING. It said it had nothing. Yes. My mistake I put "comments" on the questions thinking I would revisit through this feature and found out in the most imp exam of my life that this feature doesn't work as I attended.

What i do? these 15 questions, were somewhere in those 150 questions pool I had 20-25 min at max to put them in front of my eyes again. So, I did. I went back from question 1 and start reading , reviewing one by one until I stop at the question where I think were the originally marked ones and try to correct them....with race against the time I changed answers to few ...it felt my lips were reading words fast then what my eyes could see or the brain could processes. There are few times where you can really hear how beautiful the sound of heart beats sounds ...mine was thundering sound couple with the silence of being the only exam-taker in the room somehow I didn't felt alone. I was remembering the original 15 just with the keywords It was hard...I felt destroyed and broken. 7 min away , I was about 95% done with the second pass.

How did it went? I don't know perhaps I have to click the "finish" button to find it out. Worse out of 15 I could confidently said it was only 5-7 I had successfully managed to identify others I couldn't. There is a good-reason they use a FLAG feature and certainly not the best of ways to find out as "why"?

After collecting the exam score from site admin and opening and reading the first few lines of score results....deep inside I knew something "magical" has just happened and my heart was smiling.

So to say in end,one thing is not debatable, without hard-work all other things becomes secondary that is for sure. It only has secondary significance and it has to be backed up with real SOMETHING i.e hard-work.

NOTE: For luck part,there were more then few DoD related questions which the exam asked where I felt I need two to answer those. First, have friend who works there second get myself working as interne. I was lucky to get away answering them correctly, coz there was no way (possible) to know them otherwise. I wish I could discuss more but I have to abide my isc(2) ethics which I must.

asadzz

beads wrote: »

Keep in mind that people who took, suffered and past on an awful lot of information your reading did so with minimal assistance. Your indicating some several thousand pages of material. What if all you had to go by was the first CBK and candidate bulletin and nothing else?

Think of a time when there was no one to ask about the exam or what did you use to study as these people were not there to ask in the first place.

How about a time before Tech Exams was even an Internet board or web page? Did you think it was always this easy to pass these exams or has your swelling pride blocked out your own eyesight? You passed an exam not only due to your own abilities but do to a great deal of hard work and knowledge transfer by your predecessors.

Perhaps you just got lucky and guessed well enough to pass even with all the posts, materials and guidance available to you. Information not available to those who took the exam a decade ago. Those people who passed concentrations back then just must have been lucky. Got it!

Guessing through observation that the ratio of those passing these exams is going up due to the amount of information available to the candidates, though I haven't looked lately. Years back when I took the -ISSAP exam I was told there were two candidates - that year. Today there is someone announcing a concentration on this board about once a month.

Yep! Sure is an easy exam now isn't it?

- b/eads

My fav book I recommend more then anything else is CBK 2005. Read it word by word. Other CIB is to grasping the monster putting the big tight noose on the wild horse I say.

asadzz

beads wrote: »

Keep in mind that people who took, suffered and past on an awful lot of information your reading did so with minimal assistance. Your indicating some several thousand pages of material. What if all you had to go by was the first CBK and candidate bulletin and nothing else?

Think of a time when there was no one to ask about the exam or what did you use to study as these people were not there to ask in the first place.

How about a time before Tech Exams was even an Internet board or web page? Did you think it was always this easy to pass these exams or has your swelling pride blocked out your own eyesight? You passed an exam not only due to your own abilities but do to a great deal of hard work and knowledge transfer by your predecessors.

Perhaps you just got lucky and guessed well enough to pass even with all the posts, materials and guidance available to you. Information not available to those who took the exam a decade ago. Those people who passed concentrations back then just must have been lucky. Got it!

Guessing through observation that the ratio of those passing these exams is going up due to the amount of information available to the candidates, though I haven't looked lately. Years back when I took the -ISSAP exam I was told there were two candidates - that year. Today there is someone announcing a concentration on this board about once a month.

Yep! Sure is an easy exam now isn't it?

- b/eads

I'm not the person who is unwary of other people contributions in helping me achieve my success and goals. I'm not PROUD. I called upon Clement from cccure , I talked to some govt and DoD contractors personals no linkedin, the only advise I got was 3-4 lines strong. Unlike CISSP the common body of knowledge was most widely accessible to me in terms of webcast, quizes and books. My only best friend was CIB -8000 pages + of it. I had no USG,DoD to back me up. So, yes I thanked ISC(2) CIB for the excellent resources documentation but I believe its their job/ or duty to inform exam-takers like me. I'm grateful, that I took their words "literally"...and I did went through it even when it looked impossible.

NOTE: CBK 2005 edition is unsuppoted by ISC(2), so this makes one of very few certs out there where the ref (CIB) is the primary guide and it made perfect sense as to why when I took the exam.

asadzz

dou2ble wrote: »

Congrats! I'm one that believes faith and prayer does have an effect in my life. In addition to putting our faith into action, which in this case equals studying.

Thanks:).