How Jamilah Cracked Her CISSP Exam
Passed the exam 19 August! I'm still in shock, that exam is no punk!
The best study tip that I can offer that helped me besides reading the published study guides and test engines is to read published articles from groups like SANS reading room, Techtarget, and Dark Reading Room.
There are terms, concepts and acronyms that I was not familiar with or ever heard of. Industry publications and articles helped keep the info "fresh" and interesting. Get in the habit of sitting down and taking 100 questions a night on CCCURE. Or more if you can!
Eat well, sleep well and remember to relax during the exam. Do not over analyze the questions. Do not play the popular scenario in your head..."what would I do at my job?" This will change the perspective of the question.
Answer the question, only the question and nothing but the question. Make flash cards for terms, processes or anything you know you have trouble retaining.
Materials Used to Study: ISC2 CBK Shon Harris AIO 7th Ed Eric Conrad 3rd Ed Cybrary.it Test engine CCCURE Shon Harris Practice Exams 3rd Ed
How Robert Cracked His CISSP Exam
Hey everyone! So I showed up a few months ago complaining about how I didn’t have much time but really wanted to accomplish this within that time frame. I wanted to thank everyone here for the study links, and other people’s “passed” posts which proved really motivational and helpful.
I want to give a brief break down of what I used to study (without discussing any details of the exam obviously). I used Eric Conrad’s third edition and Kelly’s cybrary.it videos as my primary resources. I purchased the Sybex book, but I just didn’t like how in depth it went on certain topics, for me it was just too boring. I DID reference Sybex for more in depth explanations and the end of chapter quiz material however. I studied intensely for approximately 2 months,
I would read a domain (sometimes 1/2 if it was long) per day, followed by the related cybrary.it video (sometimes on the following day).
This allowed me to hear the same content delivered in a different way, and if I heard a term or concept that differed between the two, I would reference the Sybex book to make sure I covered as much as I could.
Kelly does an excellent job by the way. After completing the reading I would keep logs in a book of my quiz results so I could go back and KNOW where I stood with a given domain. I then read Eric’s 11’th hour (10 domain format) and listened to his podcasts. While reading the 11’th hour I joined a Facebook group called “CISSP Study and Theory” and would answer questions others posted as well as post my own. This gave me confidence to schedule the test and a general idea of where I stood (knowledge wise) compared to those who have passed, and others who plan on testing soon.
I apologize this isn’t that in depth, but it really wasn’t too in depth of a plan! I just made sure to keep my study time formally allotted and kept very close track of what I TRULY knew. Its very easy to mistake what you think you know, with what you really comprehend when you’re talking about this much material (at least for me). So keeping a journal of hard facts kept me grounded and allowed me to focus.
Simple suggestions but I think this helped me a lot. Wish everyone the best of luck and thanks again to the active folks here! Now to secure an endorser! haha 😉
How Sri Cracked Her CISSP Exam!
Today marks the crazy day when I PASSED the exam !!!
I have never been part of such a resourceful and dedicated group ever striving for a common goal !
It was a grueling yet a fantastic journey of 5 months of rigorous study.
Firstly, a little background about myself. I have 2 years experience in IT and 5 months in security. I appeared for the Associate CISSP. Also, I am a graduate student pursuing Masters in Information Security.
Next, moving on to the exam, it is definitely not a cakewalk and demands clear understanding of concepts. So while you study ensure you know the processes and steps and flow. Take some time out to check youtube videos on how the attacks work. 40% of the paper was pretty straight forward, 30% I had to choose between 2 options. and remaining 30% I was a little clueless.
I used the following materials. 1) Sybex ISC2 Official guide – 7th Edition.
2) Shon harris 6th Edition for Risk Management and Software Development
3) Cybrary Videos
4) CCCure
5) Exam Cram
6) McGrawHill
7) CBK Chapter End questions
8) Eric Conrad 2 full length tests
Also, I was part of a fantastic Whatsapp group managed by Ahmed Khatib. I have no words to express the dedication of the group and its members !!!
There were days when I woke up to 400 messages on the group and spent a couple of hours answering all the questions.
Above all, MOST importantly thank you Study Notes And Theory and Luke Ahmed for the extremely comprehensive articles which lucid explanations. I read all of them !!
Once again thanking you all for all your inputs !!
How Thomas Cracked His CISSP Exam
I passed the CISSP exam this afternoon, phew!
Word of advice from me:
Read the question.
Read ALL the answers!
Then read the question again!
I only had a few questions on cryptography and no questions on law and the different acts. Several questions on disaster recovery, business continuity and a hell of a lot of practical questions about specific ports and attacks. I didn’t have a single “negative”-trick question with two times “not” (else I didn’t notice :-)).
I’ve been studying on and off for the last two months. I studied based on “OFFICIAL (ISC)² CISSP TRAINING SEMINAR ONDEMAND” (Inline image 1https://learning.isc2.org/…/official-isc%C2%B2-cissp-traini…) and “CISSP: Certified Information Systems Security Professional Study Guide, Seventh Edition” (ISBN: 9781119042716). If I were to do it again, I would actually stick to just the “CISSP: Certified Information Systems Security Professional Study Guide”-book which I find much better written and easier to read than the high-level training from ISC2.
I took a bunch of tests from Inline image 2skillset.com aswell, but to be honest I never managed to take that many tests due to time constraints.
Since each test is unique, it’s pretty difficult to give a lot of dumps on the content and you sign a NDA before starting the test, that you will keep tight…and so I will. My best tips are above, keep calm, study and work with it. I have to say that if you don’t have a clue about general networking, security and Unix, this test is pretty harsh. There’s a reason you need years of experience to call yourself “certified”.
A few additional things you can add to the notes: – Think security first. While this shouldn’t come as a surprise, I took this as the foundation of my thinking throughout the questions. Forget about system availability, redundancy, scaleability and all the techie things that we use to care about and try to respond to the questions from the security point of view only.
Thanks
How Jey Cracked Her CISSP Exam!
I am really glad to share my CISSP journey and study plan with you all. I planned my study reading most of the Passed post here. I hope my post will help someone. This is going to be really a long post.
Summary: I planned to spend 6 months to study and started my journey in Jan and booked my exam for June 30th. But end of May I felt so prepared that I rescheduled my exam to June 2nd . I am happy that I made that decision.
Source:
Books :
1) Sybex 7th Edition – http://www.wiley.com/…/productCd-1119042712,miniSiteCd-SYBE… 2) CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, 6th Edition – Shon Harris – http://www.amazon.com/CISSP-All-One-Exam-Guide/dp/0071781749 (Read 5 chapter – SDLC, BCP, Secuirty Operations, Cryptography, Access Control) 3) Exam Cram – 3rd edition – http://www.amazon.com/CISSP-Exam-Cram-Michael-…/…/0789749572 4) Eric Conrad 11th hour – Not a big fan of this book 5) Cybrary (old and new videos) – Watched 3 times. – https://www.cybrary.it/course/cissp/ 6) Shon Videos
Note: I had access to Safari and so had access to Shon videos and Exam Cram books
Practice Exam: 1) Sybex chapter test and 4 full test – Free with the book – https://sybextestbanks.wiley.com/public/index/login 2) Shon Harris – Chapter test from CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide 6th edition. – – http://www.amazon.com/CISSP-All-One-Exam-Guide/dp/0071781749 3) Mcgraw Hill – https://www.mhprofessional.com/sites/CISSPExams/exam.php… (free) 4) CCCure – https://www.freepracticetests.org/quiz/index.php ( Got 3 months Subscription) 5) Exam Cram 6) Eric Conrad – Full Length test (free)
Study Plan:I read the posts in the FB – CISSP – Study group, and techexams daily. I spent 2 to 3 hours daily for first 4 months and 4 to 6 hrs during the month of May. I take off on Sundays from Studies.
As I was doing test, instead of taking notes on weakest domain, I took a list of my weak areas from each domain. This list was of great help for me during the last week of revision.
June 2 – Exam Day
Honestly, it was not as tough as everyone think so. Exam was pretty easy. I can say, I should have score above 80%. I had some similar questions from Sybex, ccure and Eric conrad test. It’s not like the exam had questions that we have not seen anywhere. Atleast my exam had very similar questions to the test banks.
And though my expereince in IT field is 13+ years, most of experience is only Identity Access Management and SDLC. I would rate myself only 5% in other domains. It is that my dedication to CISSP for past 5 months helped. I was living CISSP.
I took 4hrs to complete to the exam. 3.5 hrs for 250 question and 30 mins to review. Break at 125 and 250 questions. Review 30 marked questions. Changed at least 10.
Advice: Don’t fear the exam. If you have learned the basic concept you can pass. Don’t spend time in memorizing the numbers.
My special thanks to my family who had been with me during this journey. Thanks to everyone in this group and to my dear friend Anusha Siva.
Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
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