For those who passed the CISSP on your first attempt, how long did you study for, and did you find the material hard to understand?

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In all honesty, the material in the CISSP isn’t what’s hard to understand, especially if you have a strong technical background. What makes the exam difficult is that it’s really a way of thinking that has to be mastered, and it’s not intuitive unless you’ve been in a high-level leadership role. You can have complete technical knowledge of every single domain, but you still will not pass until you fully grasp the way of thinking the CISSP teaches. Once you get that down, then you’ll be ready for the exam.

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+1 on this. You could memorize every bit of material and BOMB the test. Its 90% mastering the mindset and thats hardest part. Quantum Exams is the only practice test that matters, the rest are fluff and are nothing like the test.

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I took a class and then read the 11th hour book. Think like a manager the answers that put life or safety at risk matter more than the correct technical answers

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And be prepared for ridiculous questions like which nist standard applies to parking lot geese. A. 800-53 B. 800-54 C. 800-55

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I passed on the first attempt and found the exam to be very different from my study materials. I used Sybex. I think this is the reason people fail on the first attempt. I would look for study materials that more closely resemble the actual exam.

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I took a one week bootcamp. I mostly studied crash outlines and didn't bother reading too deeply.

Imo the "hard" part is knowing what to study. E.g. you will NOT get any questions about crypto tables, so don't memorize them. Meanwhile you WILL get questions about security models, so definitely memorize them.

Agree with the other comments that the non-memory stuff is all pretty easy if you're in the right mindset.

Don't be concerned if you fail, it's not a big deal. Just pay attention to the type of stuff that caught you off guard and optimize for that.

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3 months, but I had pretty much mastered everything by the end. It’s a marathon not a sprint, good luck.

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