Passed at 100 questions in ~75 minutes. Here's my take...
Hey everyone,
I passed (provisionally of course) yesterday at 100 questions in a little over an hour (first time taking the test). Like many people, my exam promptly ended and I was certain I failed it. Why do people continue to say this? Because the test 1) nothing like any test bank you're studying, 2) it's tricky, 3) some of the questions just don't make sense IMHO and are poorly written. Also - I DID get new content in my exam.
Let me elaborate a bit. I can tell you that with MAYBE 20% of the questions I was 100% sure of the answer and felt great. Maybe another 10% I literally had no idea how to answer it - and in some cases, I hadn't even heard of the terms/wording they were using (which is shocking when you read how much/what I studied). For the rest of the 70% of the time I could reduce the answers to two. Then from there sometimes I felt I wasn't sure if I was clicking the right button! I can't tell you how many times I said 'fk it....click it and go. Let's go. Keep going. Make a decision and go...'
About me: 7 years in Info Sec; 20+ years in IT; Masters in Cyber Security; CISM cert; AWS CCP cert. And yea it was STILL hard.
CertEmpire CISSP Exam Material. On-Demand. This is top-notch material, and yea it's like 7k. My company paid for this. It's 3000 questions bank of content or something - I went through the entire exam questions twice until May 7th. This exam has new content because I was supposed to take the exam end of May and pushed it to June 1 (I extended the exam 7 days for air cover).
Dumpsgate CISSP Exam Dumps - Excellent. And guess what - he hits on the new content. You need to get these. After this, I did 6th Hour study of these CISSP questions- also great.
In between online classes I did the CISSP study app/test bank and the Premium version of the Prep app (I think it used to be called Pocket Prep. My phone labels it as "IT & Security"). One thing: NOT ONE TIME did I do a full test. I always did little chunks of 10 or 15 questions.
Kelley Handerhan's 'Why You Will pass the CISSP' is a good reminder to stay the fk out of the weeds.
Grabbed an updated copy of the test content from dumpsgate and Certempire. They tell you 'new for May 2021' (or similar phrasing) for new content. Use Chapple's Linked In stuff for that and/or Google.
4 days before the exam (my super fun Memorial Day weekend :P):
I read the ISC2 CISSP Official Study Guide, 8th edition (because 9th isn't out yet) COVER TO COVER in 4 days. Yes, it's like 1400 pages or something. I did the questions at the end of each chapter as well. I believe folks call this the 'lighthouse book' (because there is a little lighthouse on the cover) or 'Sybex' (because I think that is the publisher). This was a really good idea. It's so well written and flows like a book. It just makes SENSE. You need to do this.
I watched Destination Certification CISSP Mind Map series on You Tube up until I got out of my car yesterday. I think I made it through all modules except for 6. These are GREAT and honestly, I got 1-3 questions just for watching this because I had forgotten some concepts.
Here is my personal advice to you:
There are plenty of free resources out there so don't feel like you're missing out if you don't have certempire exam material.
Know the BEST of something or the FIRST step in something. For example (and these are not REAL test examples so I am not violating the NDA/ethics terms) you should think about the BEST traits about all of the 'things': LDAP, encryption, SAML, VPNs, scanning, etc. The mind map is great for this - look at the words/think of the best AND how to protect it/lower risk. You get the idea. Also, what is the FIRST thing you would do when...
You ARE a CISO on this test so think like one. How would a CISO make decisions? What would a CISO do in this situation? Try to keep that hat on.
Familiarize yourself w/ the 'main' NIST docs. RMF, Security Controls stuff (800-37 and 800-53 respectively). I used these a lot for my Master's so I've read them several times. These are a GREAT study resource.
Find your strong areas and spend more time on the weak ones. I have zero experience in NW security so all of that stuff was VERY hard for me to understand and memorize. I've done AppSec so I felt I could spend less time on SDLC type of stuff.
Study 'enough' to get down to two answers. I really feel like if you can whittle it down to two, you'll have a higher shot of answering correctly (math tells us this as well lol). I can't tell you what 'enough' is - we are all different.
Be disciplined. Make a study schedule and stick to it. 20 minutes a day minimum was mine - with more on the weekends. Write it down. Make some goals of which modules to pile through and when. Make a plan. Have your family encourage you and get behind you. My husband would say 'shouldn't you be studying?' if I was choosing to binge-watch a Netflix show over getting some study time in.
Realize that yea, this is hard. But guess what - you can do hard things. When I speak at conferences, groups, etc. I tell people this "I can teach you cybersecurity; I can't teach you how to have a work ethic". So dig deep.
Be mentally prepared. You may feel like me/others and feel like you're getting a beat down while taking the test. I said fk like I don't know - 200 times maybe? So be mentally prepared.
Take at an in-person test center if you can. Some folks on this forum are dealing with horrible situations of being accused of cheating. If you show up and have to lock up your stuff I feel like the chances are less. Plus, ZERO distractions and you can FOCUS.
Do not quit. Keep studying. Keep pressing on. Find someone to kick you in the pants if need be. Reach out to folks for moral support or advice.
Gosh, this ended up being pretty long, sorry about that. I wish each and every one of you the best in your CISSP adventures. Please reach out if I can help in any way. No quitting!!!
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