Passed CISSP this week, recommendationsa on prep material

My personal observations:

I have an academic background in infosec, 6 years of inf. sec consulting experience.

With that in mind, I used the following material:

- Read through the Eric Conrad CISSP Study Guide
- Did practise exams on cccure.org / freepractisetests.org
- Did practise exams on Transcender

I gave up on the famous shon harris book after about a chapter, it is probably better for people with no background in infosec. I also took a look at the book they give you if you take an official ISC2 course (borrowed from a friend) but it is full of mistakes and inaccurate statements.

The Eric Conrad book was the best of the bunch, to be honest. Relevant to the exam and concise. Nothing in there you don't need, nothing in there that is wrong.

The practise questions on freepractisetests.org were of wildly inconsistent quality. Some were good, some were so vague it was impossible to answer, some were just stupid ("what is bit no. 15 in an IP header").

The ones on Transcender were a lot better, but several were still just stupid - I do not want to hear anything else about token ring networks in my life again. I am not becoming certified as a museum curator.

Suprisingly, the exam itself was CONSIDERABLY more sensible than all the prep material, and had quite a few interesting cloud-related questions. Takes about 2 hours at the end of the day, maybe 3 - most questions were straightforward and either you knew it or you didn't.

So in summary: exam is not that hard, available materials mostly seem to be 15 years behind the times, read the Eric Conrad book once and then do questions on Transcender until you are getting 80%. And don't worry about the antique stuff.

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Comments

CLICK

thanks for sharing and congrats on the pass

Eburon

Congrats!

danny069

"I am not becoming certified as a museum curator" - lmao

Congrats on the pass! I am going to attempt this early next year.

g33k3r

Congrats and thanks for the feedback.

Sam_aqua

Congratulations on the pass... appreciate the feedback..

DAVIS NGUYEN

Congrats!

chrisone

Congrats! I may be tackling this cert depending on a job/career opportunity. The book you mentioned by Eric Conrad seems very outdated Nov 2012. The newer guide by ISC2 Official cert guide is updated for the 2015 exam topics. It just came out 3 weeks ago. Anyways glad you made it out alive with a pass!

Mike7

ironmustache wrote: »

The practise questions on freepractisetests.org were of wildly inconsistent quality. Some were good, some were so vague it was impossible to answer, some were just stupid ("what is bit no. 15 in an IP header").

The ones on Transcender were a lot better, but several were still just stupid - I do not want to hear anything else about token ring networks in my life again. I am not becoming certified as a museum curator.

LOL.
Guess that is a problem with test questions; new questions are being added to the bank while outdated questions are not removed whenever CISSP outline gets updated. And CISSP is about 20 years ago.

havoc64

Thanks for the study Suggestions. I am scheduled to test on the 7th of Oct. I have Both of Eric's books and the Sybex. I am 1/2 way through the Sybex and will be starting the Conrand book soon. Have been using both the CCCure and Transcender questions...

terra_l

Thanks a lot. I scheduled on 9 of Oct, i didn't read those two books, should i start to read it now? I only use cccure. only, do i need to join Transcender as well? My score on ccccure. is around 76 to 86% of every 100 to 150question. I wondering, are the score have indication?? Worry about the second attempt on Oct 9.

CIO42

Congrats! What version of the Conrad book did you use? 2nd Ed?

Sam_aqua

Also heard that Eric Conrad's 3rd edition will be released soon ? Any clue when can we see atleast the pdf

havoc64

Sam_aqua wrote: »

Also heard that Eric Conrad's 3rd edition will be released soon ? Any clue when can we see atleast the pdf

His website says something about the book being released the 1st week of this November

Mike7

November. You can pre-order from Amazon.com: CISSP Study Guide, Third Edition (9780128024379): Eric Conrad, Seth Misenar, Joshua Feldman: Books
The official study guide is available though

ironmustache

CIO42 wrote: »

Congrats! What version of the Conrad book did you use? 2nd Ed?

Yes, the third edition was not out yet. It was still pretty much on point, just missing cloud computing topics.

ironmustache

terra_l wrote: »

Thanks a lot. I scheduled on 9 of Oct, i didn't read those two books, should i start to read it now? I only use cccure. only, do i need to join Transcender as well? My score on ccccure. is around 76 to 86% of every 100 to 150question. I wondering, are the score have indication?? Worry about the second attempt on Oct 9.

I was getting mid-80s on both cccure and transcender. I think it's not bad at all; the "problem" is that cccure has questions that are a lot more detailed than the actual exam. So using it as a study guide may mean that you spend a lot of time looking up and learning details that you didn't need. Good luck tomorrow!

havoc64

Good Luck Tomorrow Terra_L.:)

jaandrade3rd

Congrats!

Clm

Just wanted to say congrats and thank you for the great feedback

ccnpninja

Congrats on the pass