I thought it might be nice to share the path that I took to study for my CISSP. CISSP is something that I have thought about getting for years but never really looked all that much into, just something in the back of my mind. Once I really started to study for it, it was a serious amount of information but stay calm and focused and it all comes together.
Here is what I did, I hope it helps…
I wanted to get started with as much information as I could but with out spending all my time reading or doing labs, I wanted to study passively. In order to do that I opted for an audio book from Amazon. This way on my way to work and then while I was at my desk during the day I would listen to Simple CISSP. I thought this gave me a ton of information and even listened to it twice before actually cracking a physical book. Granted, I didn’t get the full impact of the material from this book because I would be doing other things while listening to it, but the purpose was to get me ready to break into the actual study guide book etc.
Once I felt like I had a better idea of the material and I was ready to handle the monster of a book that is the Study Guide, I ordered a copy and started in on it. One thing I learned after 2 or 3 chapters is that I was going about my studying WRONG here.
Along with the study guide I had downloaded an app to my phone that had a CISSP question of the day and would give a certain number of 10 question tests. Along with this app, for the first few chapters in the book, I would do the questions in the review section. Sometimes I would nail it, all 10 right, sometimes though I would get only 4 or 5 right. Well, after a few times doing that it actually got demoralizing and kind of took away my drive and I didn’t even want to continue. Finally I got to a point where I realized that doing these questions had to stop if I was going to be able to keep going. If it helps you to do the questions then by all mean, go for it. My theory was that these 10 questions may be great review but I was still taking in info so I wasn’t ready to review and on top of that the actual test can be as long as 150 questions and a 10 question test is NOT a representation of the real one.
To take a slight step back, about 1/3 of the way through the book I also realized that not having an end date was slowing me down. By not having a test date I could skip a day or two of study and it was fine. So I set my test date and it was only about a month and a half in the future. You want motivation, that’s motivation!
All that being said, I completed that book in a few weeks with a lot of highlighting and notes. Once I completed that I needed another book to look at, but I wasn’t interested in reading an entire book. CISSP for Dummies was my huckleberry. I have read several of the For Dummies books in the past and while they may not be the best for something like this it was a good resource because of the side notes and tips etc. that they include throughout the book, and that’s what I wanted. In fact I would even say that I read the book, just skimmed those bits and pieces.
An important note on both of these books is that they both come with an online test bank which is a great resource.
The last book that I used to fill in the blanks was CISSP in 21 Days, another good resource to fill in the gaps and get a little supplemental information. Again though, I didn’t read the book, just skimmed it.
Once I got through the books I decided that I had gotten a ton of information so it was time to test it, with actual tests. This is where the test banks came in, none of that 10 question stuff. Every night for about 2 weeks I sat at my computer with noise canceling headphones on (so it would be like the testing center) and took a 150 question test. I failed some, I passed most but my thinking was that I was filling in information on material I wasn’t solid on and also preparing for the possible 3 hour marathon that is this test. I did NOT take these tests until I got a 90% consistently or anything like that, I took them until I was comfortable with the material. The reason I did that was because, anyone can have a bad test day at any time, skim the questions too fast and not understand it, skim the answers too fast, have a knee jerk reaction, whatever.
About a week before the actual test I backed off the practice tests and focused back on the Sybex book, but only on the ends of the chapters. I copied out the Exam Essentials sections and put them all together in a bit of a study guide. This way I could easily cover a lot of important material in a short amount of time without having to navigate that beast of a book.
I stopped all studying 3 days before my test, by then I knew what I knew and it was going to have to be good enough so I decided to just relax. The day of the test I played 2 videos over and over to get into the “CISSP Mindset”.
AreCyber LLC CISSP Certification Exam Guidelines
Why you WILL pass the CISSP
While these may not actually be giving you information they are invaluable in getting into both the CISSP way of thinking and a test taking mindset.
My little bastardized study guide went with me to the test so I could take in a little bit of review in the car before going into the center and that was the end of my prep. 84 minutes after sitting down for the test I was done with a “provisional pass”.
I hope you can use some of the information and resources I have provided here and that the info was helpful.
Good luck future CISSP!