CISSP Exam - New 8 Domain Structure

Hey guys,

I've been reading these forums for a few weeks appreciate all of the great information contributed by everyone so I just wanted to give back to the community.

I took the CISSP Exam this morning and without violating any NDA, I will give you all my experience. I finished the exam in 4 hours and flagged questions that I was completely uncertain about to review at the end of the exam. I hear a lot of people recommend doing 125 questions, take a break, and then take another break at 250, etc. Do whatever works for you. I was personally in grind mode and took a break at 150 questions just to stretch. I did another 100 questions and decided to take an extended break just to refresh my mind before reviewing the iffy questions.

Anyway, I took a boot camp with Info Sec Institute and learned a lot of great information. I won't be able to tell you whether or not it helped on the exam as I did NOT get my results today. I received a printout that states it will take 6 weeks to find out if I passed/fail due to them performing psychometric analysis. It's a bit grueling, but we'll see - I hope I passed.

This is how I prepared for the exam:

Eric Conrad's CISSP Book and 11th Hour
Shon Harris AIO as a reference
Clement's videos which are really good, but EXTREMELY long. I wish he had these available on YouTube so I could have listened to the material at 1.50 speed.
CCCure Practice Questions
SkillSet Practice Questions
McGraw-Hill Practice Questions
Info Sec Institute Bootcamp (Grueling 12 hour days, brain was numb)
Created my own study guide so the material would stick to my head

My experience:
I have been the industry for 4 years and have done everything from managing projects to writing policies and procedures Most of my experience is Governance and Compliance, but also have experience in managing IPS, malware, DLP, etc. I have the MCITP Desktop Enterprise Administrator Win 7 cert and the MCSA Server 2012 cert as well which waives the 5th year requirement to get endorsed

I can't talk about the exam, however I can say that you really need to understand the big picture and concepts of the material on ALL domains. I will say that after all this material, I still feel very uncertain on how I did on the exam - this is like no other exam I have ever taken and I will leave it at that. Did anyone feel the same way with the prior to the April 15th, 2015 domain restructuring?

I apologize in advance for my vagueness, however due to the agreement of the ISC2 NDA, I cannot give specific information about the exam, I can only state the above information.

Good luck to anyone taking the new exam!

-Abel

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

BlackBeret

I felt the same way when I took it in March. There's a reason they say it's a mile wide and an inch deep. The breadth of material that it covers is insane, but that's why it's still highly regarded.

shamim.sec

Hi Abel,

Congrts on your seccess. Would please give some idea about question pattern, which domain requires more attention.

Thanks

Shamim

abelamorales

shamim.sec wrote: »

Hi Abel,

Congrts on your seccess. Would please give some idea about question pattern, which domain requires more attention.

Thanks

Shamim

Hi Shamim,

Due to the ISC2 I am unable to disclose information about the exam. Best advice is for you to be familiar to with all 8 domains.

Good luck!

E Double U

I passed on 28-March, but I wasn't 100% sure that I had passed. I only reviewed 2 or 3 of my flagged questions and just clicked submit because I was tired of the exam and just wanted to leave.

joshmadakor

Hey OP, good work with the test.

Having used the 10 domain study materials, did you feel you ran into many unfamiliar topics with the new exam?

Robicus

Congratulations!

justjen

Congrats! I took (and passed) the exam on April 14, before just the restructuring of the domains, and I agree - it is like no other test I have taken. Go celebrate anyways; at the least, you deserve a break from the studying.

abelamorales

Thanks. It sucks having to wait 6 weeks to get my results.

Southkeys

I took the exam in early May without knowing the exam has changed since mid April. No wonder felt it was totally different as all preparation materials I read. Wasted a lot of time.

barman

How different was the exam from the material that you used to prepare in advance?

abelamorales

Barman,

I took the CISSP Boot Camp WITH the revised curriculum, studied the old materials from CCCure Videos, Sybex and Shon Harris books, and also the 11th Hour Conrad book.

I have never put so much time into a single exam to later on walk into the room and take the exam feeling completely unprepared. Never, have I taken an exam like this - not in college or any other industry cert. I understand why obtaining this credential is very prestigious, however I don't feel I was tested based on the content I studied. The exam could have been open book and you would've said WTF, am I taking the right exam?

barman wrote: »

How different was the exam from the material that you used to prepare in advance?

beads

abelamorales wrote: »

Barman,

I took the CISSP Boot Camp WITH the revised curriculum, studied the old materials from CCCure Videos, Sybex and Shon Harris books, and also the 11th Hour Conrad book.

I have never put so much time into a single exam to later on walk into the room and take the exam feeling completely unprepared. Never, have I taken an exam like this - not in college or any other industry cert. I understand why obtaining this credential is very prestigious, however I don't feel I was tested based on the content I studied. The exam could have been open book and you would've said WTF, am I taking the right exam?

That is the most traditional response to the exam that I have heard over the years. I've heard even worse and folks who have directly admitted to failing a concentration as having the same thoughts. For that matter I couldn't recognize how to use a revolving door after the ISSAP and no I didn't get the immediate results, either. Did leave me feeling stupid and bewildered though.

This new exam is proving to be a tougher nut to crack than anyone gave it serious credit for, so good luck with the results!

- b/eads

abelamorales

Received results today and I passed. I am so relieved to receive the news and glad that the waiting period is over. Good luck to everyone that is still pursuing the cert and feel free to ask any questions in regards to the preparation for the exam.

flipflop4567

Great Job, I don't think they were asking for specific questions and answers but a generalization, not asking you to compromise yourself or the exam. HBO (Help a Brother Out) .

RuleOf3

Great job on the pass! Your observation that even an open-book exam would not be helpful is right on target. For many of the questions, a person could have all their books and even Google access, and still be unsure how to answer. Or gauge the correctness of their answers. I guess that's ISC(2)'s method behind the madness. -Lisa

zentury

abelamorales wrote: »

Barman,

I took the CISSP Boot Camp WITH the revised curriculum, studied the old materials from CCCure Videos, Sybex and Shon Harris books, and also the 11th Hour Conrad book.

I have never put so much time into a single exam to later on walk into the room and take the exam feeling completely unprepared. Never, have I taken an exam like this - not in college or any other industry cert. I understand why obtaining this credential is very prestigious, however I don't feel I was tested based on the content I studied. The exam could have been open book and you would've said WTF, am I taking the right exam?

Congrats on your pass

SO Was it way off the topic from the 10 domains (now 8 ) that you studied?
Asking this because I'm using the old materials, and should NOT feel that I should have waited for the new books to arrive.
Was there anything different in the 'new' bootcamp that you attended?

abelamorales

zentury wrote: »

Congrats on your pass

SO Was it way off the topic from the 10 domains (now 8 ) that you studied?
Asking this because I'm using the old materials, and should NOT feel that I should have waited for the new books to arrive.
Was there anything different in the 'new' bootcamp that you attended?

To be quite honest, I feel like they just rephrased (word smith) the domains. Overall, it's the same material with some minor additions. For the exam preparation, you need to understand the concepts of the material in order to pass it.

The boot camp was very helpful because I had one week to immerse myself in the curriculum, but based on studying the old material and the new, I feel that there aren't many differences. Keep studying and check out skillset.com for the free CISSP questions. Some questions are way too specific and crazy, but they have some very good questions on there to test your understanding of the concepts and your ability to understand questions.

zentury

abelamorales wrote: »

To be quite honest, I feel like they just rephrased (word smith) the domains. Overall, it's the same material with some minor additions. For the exam preparation, you need to understand the concepts of the material in order to pass it.

The boot camp was very helpful because I had one week to immerse myself in the curriculum, but based on studying the old material and the new, I feel that there aren't many differences. Keep studying and check out skillset.com for the free CISSP questions. Some questions are way too specific and crazy, but they have some very good questions on there to test your understanding of the concepts and your ability to understand questions.

Wonderful.
That sounds encouraging

Will keep pace with my reading/ understanding the concepts,
Other-hand yeah bootcamp is way over my budget (family with kid).

Your feedback has been very informative for my current preparation.
Thanks again.