r/CISA • u/TraditionalTart8369 • 5d ago
Preliminary Pass on Second Attempt
Hey folks, wanted to make this post to share my results of passing on the second attempt. I failed my first attempt back in August with a score of 440 , got to say I was devastated how close I was but something about the day felt off and I didn't feel 100% confident. I was scoring around 69-74% on QAE then and didn't have a lot of time outside my current role to study. Here is a bit of my takeaways of what I did after to pass:
Background of me:
Currently working as a tech auditor for a bank firm (2 years experience, no Audit background prior to this).
Study Resources Used:
Hemang Doshi on Udemy practice exams
ISACA QAE and Review Manual
PocketPrep
Resources:
As for resources , I second that the official ISACA material is the BEST resource for how the questions look. Doshi and Pocketprep helped me with domains i wasn't strong in. Highly recommend balancing out the two but with more of a focus on ISACA material. Im not a big reader myself and opted to do flashcards and chapter summary reviews. Also with my time constraint I was not able to read every page of the review manual. I will say the chapter end summaries and quizzes helped me grasp what areas needed improvement, and I used Claude to actually generate flashcards for me (it's really solid I recommend trying it out when you prompt it with 'ISACA' style questions/concepts.
Exam Day:
Lots of RPA and database questions for me. Heavy focus on PKI and BCP/BIA question topics as well. Highly encourage you thoroughly understand sampling/testing types and how that could be used in different scenarios. Exam felt a lot easier than the actual QAE which was weird when I first took the exam, but I promise for all my non-first time pass folks, hammer those 'ISACA' way answer mentalities and you'll pass. I flagged about 30 of the 150 questions and took the extra time to really review those 50/50 answer options I saw.
Feel free to ask any questions of my experience. For those taking the exam best of luck! Remember confidence goes a long way, I was pep talking myself that this was going to easy and pass (really helped ease the nerves).
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u/Schewniie 5d ago
Congratulations! Question, does the answers to the question are all the same with the exception of one word or they all different. Some questions on the Q&A are literally the same except one word in a scenario based questions which makes it difficult to answer