"NEW" CISSP, PASSED on 05/22/2015

First I would like to thank everybody on this forum. I got a lot of helpful information from you guys. Thanks!

I took the test today and was feeling pretty scared after reading some of the other posts. Went into the Exam feeling extremely prepared. I have 15+ years of IT experience and been working with CyberSec for the last 9 years. Decided to take the test and scheduled it 2 months ahead, not knowing about the new exam. Anyways, this is what I used to study (study plan devised after reading a lot of posts from this forum):

CBT Nuggets Videos - Watched them all as an introduction to each domain.
All In One Book, 6th Edition, Shon Harris - Read it all, didn't skip any chapters. Did ALL the questions. (best material imho)
McGraw Hill Practice Exams - Did all of them. Some questions were the same as in AIO. Highly recommended.
Shon Harris MP3 (download from mhprofesisonal.com) - Listened to these in the car, at home, everywhere. They are long and tiring but a nice way to review. (A few errors in this material, so pay attention)
Eric Conrad book - Read it from cover to cover. Easy reading, a bit superficial. Did all the practice questions.
11th hour book - Read it on the last few days as a review. Was worth the $.
Ccure questions - Did 1500+ questions and was averaging 85% on simulated exams. Great for weakness assessment.
I made notes of every topic I felt insecure about, reviewed those notes and memorized a lot of stuff in the last 3 days of preparation.
"New CBK" - Stopped reading this after the first chapter. Felt like it was useless.

The test: MUCH easier than I expected! Finished it in 2:50 (two hours and fifty minutes) with a 15 minute break after about 2 hours. My initial thoughts during the test were: "This is too easy, this is about to get tough any minute now!". It never did. I definitely felt over-prepared. The topics covered by the AIO and "Eric Conrads" book were all very valid, no need to stress out about "new material". The same concepts still apply. I did feel though that the exam was able to extract a lot of personal experience, many questions I felt I knew the answer based solely on past experiences. Other questions were just from the textbook, anyone could answer by studying from the "old" material. So for those that are thinking like I was yesterday, don't stress out. The "old material" is what you need to study.
(BTW, I did not flag or review any answers, but that's just my way of taking tests, I don't recommend it. Stick with what gives you confidence.)

I was very surprised to see the result. Was expecting a: "you'll hear from us in 6 to 8 weeks".

Once again, thank you so much for all you guys here that helped me out. Appreciate it enormously.
And best of luck to those that are still going to take the test!

Now it's time to celebrate!

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Comments

FloOz

Congrats on the pass!!

marcarthur87

Congrats man! i failed my exam back in March. I need to get back on it, i was a little discouraged.

jt2929

Congrats on the pass!

mikehedi

Congrats and thanx for info ,
About new CBK , I agree with you , Its useless ,
For now I'm using celment's training from cccure.training ,

Mooseboost

Congrats on the pass!

fasc

Thanks guys!

marcarthur87, don't give up! Just set another exam date and dive into it!

mikehedi, Clement said the old material was sufficient, and he ended up being right. The new CBK book (4th ed) is a total waste of money. I think that people that give that book a 5 stars just bought the book to decorate their shelves.

mikehedi

Not only Clement said but also www.cybrary.it is saying old materials are OK,
Based on your experience it seems they are right

I'm waiting for Eric Conrad's new book too ,

zentury

Congratulations

Good that you mentioned that New CBK is not worth it.
Had thoughts about buying it from past week (Was wondering if the older materials still cover Asset Management I guess it does).

May I know how many hours you spent per day/week? to cover the domains?

fasc

In the first 4 weeks I spent about 4-5 hours a day of studying. The last 4 weeks it was an average of 2 hours a day. I learn fast, but I also forget fast...

joshmadakor

fasc wrote: »

Thanks guys!
I think that people that give that book a 5 stars just bought the book to decorate their shelves.

Haha, I think so too. Here is my review on it: Amazon.com: josh's review of Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK, Fo...

zentury

Thanks for a quick response

appreciate it.
It's been a while I did any certifications. It's only that my experience has taken me this far.

It's been just a week since I started my prep.

Now that you completed the exam successfully,
may I ask you how many months of prep work is needed for this exam.

mikehedi

joshmadakor wrote: »

Haha, I think so too. Here is my review on it: Amazon.com: josh's review of Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK, Fo...

I read it and I agree 100% with you ,
Unfortunately I bought this book ,But it is useless for me ,

fasc

zentury wrote: »

may I ask you how many months of prep work is needed for this exam.

Two months total for me.

zentury

Excellent , Thank you and thanks for the study tips.
Congrats on your cert and wish you all the best on your future endeavors.

YouWill787

Congratulations!

Thanks for sharing your experience! It's great to get confirmation that the result wait is over with. It's renewed my enthusiasm in prepping.

Good luck to any and all fellow hopefuls!

Robicus

Congratulations!

That's pretty cool-- looks like they're back to the instant results. W00t!

Enjoy your weekend!

justjen

Congrats! Wonderful to see exciting news with people passing again.

Matt2

Congratulations!

Dustang2014

Congrats I am taking mine the 4th and have been prepping hard core. I am glad to hear you didn't have to wait. I rescheduled in hopes I would miss the wait time.

jvrlopez

Congrats!

I had the same experience and thought when I passed mine last year. Maybe I was over prepared but it felt a lot easier than everyone made it out to seem. I went to the restroom during my break and had a laugh because it was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be or as my peers had made it out to be.

I am pretty sure that feeling directly correlates to how much time has been studying and how prepared you are.

Thank you for giving us your thoughts on the new test. Version to version won't seem that alien so I don't know why everyone is making a big deal about it. The concepts will still be the same, maybe a new technology or two. Two or more revisions? Maybe.

fasc

jvrlopez wrote: »

Congrats!

I had the same experience and thought when I passed mine last year. Maybe I was over prepared but it felt a lot easier than everyone made it out to seem. I went to the restroom during my break and had a laugh because it was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be or as my peers had made it out to be.

I am pretty sure that feeling directly correlates to how much time has been studying and how prepared you are.

Thank you for giving us your thoughts on the new test. Version to version won't seem that alien so I don't know why everyone is making a big deal about it. The concepts will still be the same, maybe a new technology or two. Two or more revisions? Maybe.

I was very anxious prior to the test. Decided to stop reading the forum a couple of days ago because some posts were just making me even more nervous. I was extremely worried about reading the Exam questions and having absolutely no idea what they were talking about. What actually happened was what I described: I was waiting for the hard questions to show and the never did. Stuck to the same thing I read here on the forum several times: you could always eliminate two answers because they were completely absurd, and then choose the best answer from the other two. A lot of repetitive questions, same topic over and over again. And a few "classic given questions" that they give you the answer in a statement just a few questions ahead.

Lesrec

Congrats on the pass!

abelamorales

I took the exam on April 27th, it seems that your experience was a lot different than mine. I used a lot of the same resources you listed to prepare for the exam, but even after the exam, I felt unprepared. Anyway, congratulations on this accomplishment!

Clockcrawler

Congrats!

I'm a bit jealous. Apparently you received results at the end of your exam. I took the exam just a few days earlier, on 5-16-15 and ended up with the notice that the results will be delayed 4-6 weeks while ISC2 conducts psychometric analyses. It's tough to do all the studying and the exam and then not know how I actually did. Thanks for posting, I'm glad to know some of the new exam results are finally getting out.

All the best to you!

shamim.sec

congrts on passing..

Chuzpah

Congrats! I found the 3rd edition CBK to be a good reference. Why do you think the new edition is "useless"?

FireFire

That's nice story to hear.

Thanks

melvinfz

Congratulations !!

joshmadakor

Chuzpah wrote: »

Why do you think the new edition is "useless"?

Because it's a 1300 page book that could have been written with half the pages

!nf0s3cure

1300 hundred pages...surely that will justify the price tag!....... In quantity may be, but not in quality:)