5 Tips for Passing the CISSP

April 9, 2011 By Mitchell Rowton Leave a Comment

1. Don’t sweat the details

Five tips for passing the CISSPIt’s easy to get caught up on details, especially memorizing facts. While the CISSP does have detailed answers that depend on you knowing facts, it’s much more important to understand concepts. Don’t get me wrong, you have to put in the effort required to memorize terms and concepts, but you can’t rely on this to pass the exam.

We all know that many of the questions are difficult. You will either immediately know the answer or you won’t. When you don’t know the answer you have to count on your understanding of the concept to help you pick the most likely answer based on the intent of the question.

2. Studying for the CISSP is like learning to subnet

Remember when you learned to subnet? At first it seemed like voodoo black magic that inexplicably produced answers that couldn’t be explained. That’s because you need to apply multiple concepts at one time in order to subnet. As you learn to subnet, you first learn one of the concepts. This creates the strange sensation of learning something, yet not getting any closer to understanding it. After you learn all of the basic concepts then you suddenly have an “ah ha” moment and understand the entire process. The CISSP is the same way.

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How I Failed the CISSP

February 27, 2011 By Mitchell Rowton 2 Comments

I took the CISSP in 2004 with two friends from work. I failed and they both passed. Here’s why-

In 2001 I took my first IT certification test- Cisco’s CCNA. I had heard this was a difficult exam but didn’t have an opportunity to actually talk to someone who had taken it. Because it was my first cert, I was very scared and nervous. I had absolutely zero confidence in my ability to pass it. Fortunately, I was also leaving the Marine Corps and was even more scared about being unemployed.

Failed the CISSPI paid a friend cash and he let me use his credit card to order a CCNA book and register or the exam. I studied for about a month, going through what I would describe as an “academic fight or flight” scenario. I was reading the book every chance I got, more than was probably healthy. I could do hexadecimal conversions in my sleep and subnet during breakfast.

When the big day came to take the exam I felt reasonable confident. The exam was schedule to last 90 minutes, I finished in 17. Passed with flying colors. Either the test was much easier than I expected or I simply over studied for it. I assumed the latter and chalked it up as a learning experience.

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