I started seriously working for CISSP in mid of December 2016 , previously I passed A+ Network+ and security+ in 4 month time without any serious preparation but I was aware that CISSP need more dedication and commitment so I spent around 3 month to prepare and spent 5 to 6 hours daily
I seldom use books for study and only used them for reference and read end of lesson summary of AIO and Sybex book and I am glad I do so , frankly this exam need current and upto date knowledge and books lack this because they cannot be updated after publication , instead I use online video courses from
1 David miller safari books online 2 Sari Greene safari books online 3 Mike Chapple Lynda.com ( up to 5 domains) 4 CBT nuggets Keith barker ( for reference) 5 urduitacademy.com CISSP course ( in my native language Urdu) 6 Z. Cliffs Schreuders YouTube videos at https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCAYF5jJkUBcmn1cor50yDOg 7 and Kelly from Cybrary.it and so many other video or resource from where I can get knowledge
Most of above mentioned resources were available through my City of Toronto public library membership which was my ultimate source of study and I am really thankful to my city library to provide such wonderful sources free of cost , I will recommend everybody to check their city's library for available resources and most of you will be surprised to see the wealth of knowledge you can get form this single source
Few words about exam , I like the quality of questions and how they were framed only complain I have is there choice of vocabulary which I think was very harsh sometimes , I got 3 questions where I don't understand what a specific word mean even though I am living in a English speaking country for about 11 years and all of my formal education was in English so I think this is unfair to candidates who's native language is not English because it doesn't leave a level playing ground and after all this is not a language exam
Few important thing , this exam is very practical and scenario based spent most of your time on new technology rather focusing on history, think like a decision maker , do a root cause analysis of question before answering and lastly it's an international exam so no need to understand any country specific laws , standards and frameworks
Lastly on the lighter side I heard so many times that CISSP is a mile wide and an inch deep , seems to me like Jack of all trades , master of none Good luck to everyone trying hard to pass this exam.
Asir