Well hello there! This post is to share how my preparations to get the CISSP have gone so far. I’d like to share my experience, but take this with a grain of salt until I get my exam score with a pass.
Gathering the materials#
So these are the materials I’ve been using:
Reading:
- Official Study Guide (OSG), 10th edition.
- Official Practice Tests.
- Pete Zerger: The Last Mile.
Videos:
Practice questions:
So what has been the plan?#
After procrastinating (something I’m really good at) for way too long, I started preparing for the exam mid January. At first, I read the OSG back to back, twice (Yikes!!!). It’s boring, dry, and dreadful… but I felt it had to be done. I’m not sure how many concepts I retained, but at least now I kinda know whether or not the topics in the practice questions are actually in the OSG. Spoilers: I have the sensation that not everything asked in the practice tests is in the OSG. I find myself Googling things constantly.
In the meantime I was taking notes in Obsidian of what I considered important, based on the chapter summaries and the topics I wasn’t familiar with in the practice questions. Then I started doing 5 to 25 practice questions here and there to get familiar with the topics. Whenever I felt tired I watched the LinkedIn video series, because after all, what matters most is posting “I’m delighted to announce that I’ve obtained a new certificate of completion” on LinkedIn so other people can bathe in your enlightenment. That was the plan for the first month and a half.
Then the real uphill battle started when I tried to build the stamina to tackle 100 questions in one go. I found that extremely difficult for two reasons: firstly, Dory has better memory retention than me, so I had no idea what I was reading about most of the time. Secondly, for the life of me, I can’t maintain focus for more than approximately, barely, 45 seconds.
With practice, and my mind wandering to some very weird places between questions (why is the fluff in my belly button blue if I’m wearing a gray tshirt?), I’ve somehow managed to build the stamina to sit my ass down and tackle 100+ questions in one go. I review the questions I failed and try to understand why. I review the questions I got right (surprisingly) and try to also understand why. All of this while I cross reference the notes I wrote in Obsidian. It has taken a lot of time, but I think I now have 90% of the material dumped into the second brain. I’m not completely sure whether I’m using Obsidian correctly, but that’s a topic for another day.
If I had to start over, here’s what I’d do differently#
- Buy the digital version of the OSG, not a physical one. Yes, I wanted the paper version so I wouldn’t spend the whole day staring at a screen. However, searching for information in a physical book is grim. Ditch the romantic paper brick, embrace the dull and practical Ctrl+F, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V machine.
- Don’t buy the practice tests book. LearnZapp contains the same questions. Skip the book, get the LearnZapp subscription instead, embrace the power of clicking furiously.
- Start training your focus and stamina earlier. Instead of doing 5 to 10 questions here and there, push for 100 or more in one go, which can easily take a couple of hours particularly if you take notes while reviewing each question.
I have roughly 17 days before exam day. The plan now is to focus on practice exams, keep taking notes on the topics I don’t understand, and then read Pete Zerger’s Last Mile and watch his videos. I haven’t yet read Maarten de Frankrijker’s Sunflower Notes or the Destination CISSP Mindmaps, but I think those will be very helpful for the final review before exam day.
Come along with me on this odyssey, more adventures to come! I’ll keep you posted about my frustrations, tears, cursing while throwing my first in the air and hair pulling.