Hi Everyone ,
Yesterday I passed the new CAT format CISSP , my exam was cut off exactly at 100 questions . Exam is very different and tougher than all the questions I practiced(and I did a lot of practice questions, may be 5000+ approx ). I started this journey last year when I joined SNT group and attended one of Luke’s class which covered basic but core concepts of Information security that you need to apply in all domains. His classes are hard but very good as they give you deeper understanding of the subject . He also introduced me to what’s app group which later became a Telegram group and I found few of my study partners from there.
Thanks First : To my family – my husband who is very supportive and handled lot of work at home so I can study and my two kids as I was not able to devote that much time to them, they were worried and texted me on exam day to ask me my result . Special Thanks from the Telegram group to MadUnix – process guide is very useful, and my two new special friends Bhavya and Angilica M and of course lot of other members who motivate each other. And Thanks to Luke for starting and managing FB , SNT WebSite , Trainings , Questions , I know it takes a lot of time , energy and patience.
Study Material used: Eric Conrad (as main source) , but also read many chapters from Sybex , Shon and CBK . I did domain 1 , 3 , 4 , 8 from all these books. I also watched Kelly H , videos twice – in the beginning as well as in the last week before my exam. I highly recommend Kelly H for Crypto and Domain 8. I also attended Sari Green’s two day cissp camp on Safari Online.
Questions : All chapter end questions from all books , ISC2 questions , Total Tester , Total Tester Cram , Exam Cram(only some from here) , Sybex Bank , MHProfessional(only some) , Some CCure ( I took membership , then it expired and I didn’t renew as I had enough questions) and many questions from Telegram group.
Study Plan – I used to study 4-5 hours every day when I started in dec last year , early jan – then I stopped in the middle around March and didn’t started again till September . This was a big mistake – if you start something – you should not leave in middle and I had to study all over again . But this time I studied 4-6 hours daily from sept to Dec . Some days I was not able to devote time as my work was very busy or home front was busy, but I always covered up over weekend. I booked one week vacation before the exam and I spent prob 10 hours daily in that last week .
Exam Day: Two days before exam I thought I am not well prepared , but I got lot of assurance from others that it happens to everyone and I can do it . I Only read process guide in the morning , reached center around 7:30 AM , it was very busy as lot of girls were giving RN exam . I had to wait one hour to start my exam . Every time you go in or come out for break you need to do a Palm Vein Scan , highly secure . You cant take anything inside – no water , no food . They give you noise cancelling headphones .
There was another guy giving CISSP , who came with a Lunch box , and after one hour he started checking with the Procter that his exam duration is not correct and this is supposed to be 6 hour exam . Procter came inside and asked me so I told him about change and CAT . They said they didn’t get any notification from ISC2.
I was able to sense when I was getting easy questions that my last question was wrong , questions were hard , I wrote down “Think like a manager” on board that I got from Procter – but I kept on waiting for those kind of questions , My question set was very technical – heavily focused on Crypto and Network. SO I can’t say that this domain is important – you need to be well prepared for exam and cover all domains in depth – I actually mean in DEPTH . e.g. If you don’t understand L2TP , IPSEC , GRE and how they work – pls. study and think of situations where it can be used , don’t just read about attacks – understand how they work , watch videos .
Good luck for your exam , YOU CAN TOTALLY DO IT.