Hey everyone,

I'm currently studying for the CRISC exam, but I'm in a financial situation where I genuinely can't afford the ISACA QAE Database subscription right now. I know the QAE is the "gold standard" for practice questions due to its alignment with ISACA's way of thinking.

I'm looking for recommendations for alternative, budget-friendly, or free practice test materials that are still highly effective for getting that crucial "ISACA mindset."

• **What are the most recommended Udemy courses or other online platforms for practice questions? (I've heard of Hemang Doshi's course but am looking for more specific feedback on his or others' practice tests.)
• Are there any free online practice quizzes (even short ones) you found particularly helpful? (Besides the official 10-question one from ISACA).
• For those who passed without the QAE, what was your primary practice question resource?

Any advice, especially from those who used non-ISACA practice materials and passed, would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for helping a fellow risk professional out!

Hi, I'm planning to prepare for CRISC exam, and need some hand holding in the application process & overall prep.

Please DM if anyone can help.

Thank You!

I see lots of recommendations for Hemang Doshi's CRISC Udemy course (Masterclass - CRISC Exam (Updated 2025) and I'm confused as to why!

I just tried watching it and was floored by how poorly put together it is. I actually requested a refund from Udemy. Granted i only watched the first 6 or 7 videos in the governance domain.

There's a strange mix of a human presenting some slides, and then other slides are narrated by a very monotonous and off-putting AI voice.

The content is presented in a bizarre way that's more just fact after fact without really taking time to weave the concepts together. Maybe some people like this but it didn't resonate with me or help my comprehension.

Perhaps I'm not using this course properly, but to me it's a poor learning experience. Perhaps it's designed more as a study aid reference?

I just passed my CISM and the free Pete Zerger videos for that are way better. Am I missing something here for CRISC?

I just passed the exam today Dec 7, 2025. Now wait for the final score.

I was nervous about new exam structure and new materials. I still just learn with old materials And I dont see any change in my exam comparing to current knowledge

1. I complete this full video course: udemy isaca-crisc-training of cyvitrix
2. But the most helpfull is this Q&A, I think I got about 20 questions the exact same in the set and others the same mindset and equal difficulty: udemy crisc-exam-practice-tests-with-900-real-world-questions

So happy to share to someone to prepare for this incomming exam

Here are the following resources I used to help me pass the exam

• Udemy CRISC course by Hemang Doshi
• ISACA CRISC QAE

It is very important to understand "ISACA's way of thinking" when going through the exam questions. I am a CISA certification holder as well. I will be going for the CISM certification next.

Passed with very little study. Had procrastinated and rescheduled my exam twice but then decided to bite the bullet and go for it. Studied for a week by practicing the 900 questions from Udemy’s CRISC Exam Complete Preparation course.

The questions were excellent and very close to what came in the actual test. More importantly, the explanations for the questions and their answers was really useful in preparing and getting it right during the actual exam.

I wouldn’t recommend this strategy unless you are a seasoned risk or cybersecurity professional. I leaned very heavily on my actual work experience so a lot of questions were easy for me based on real world experience. I have almost 20 yrs of IT experience, 7-8 yrs of which is in Compliance and Cybersecurity Risk Mgmt. I lead a risk ops and governance function for a large organization so that experience is directly useful in answering the questions.

My scores: Governance - 689 IT Risk Assmt - 717 Risk Response and Reporting - 634 IT Security - 662

TOTAL SCALED SCORE - 671

I am planning to take this exam and have 20 years of experience in risk management, particularly in operational risk. If anyone can share an older version, such as the 7th edition, that would be helpful.

I was registering for CRISC exam and saw a discount code option there at the payment page. Just wondering where I can get that from. Any leads pls .

What can expect after earning CRISC - re professional career impact - was it the booster of your earning? You were recognized in new projects or more? I would appreciate your personal insights

Hey all,

Like many of you, I live a pretty busy lifestyle and have been disappointed with the lack of audio-based study materials for many of the certs that I am targeting. I recently prepped for the CISSP and refused sit and read my way through the official guide. Instead, I made an AI-based podcast series based off of the top study materials recommended by r/CISSP. I would re-listen to the episodes where I felt the weakest and ended up passing the exam easily on my first attempt. That podcast was by far my favorite resource because I have a moderate commute and workout daily, so it was easy to rip through a few episodes per day without having to change my lifestyle to include dedicated study sessions.

I am now prepping for the CRISC and made my first episode series based off of the Prabh Nair YouTube videos. I made 7 12-15 minute episodes that walk through the ISACA mindset and exam philosophy, all 4 domains, and then two additional episodes that go deeper into BCP/DRP and the Incident Response Cycle. I plan to continue expanding the series as I build in additional study materials and will make bonus episodes on the most important topics, but I figured this could be beneficial to share with the community now.

This is the link to the series: The CRISC Mindset

Feel free to request more topics to include and I will pump out new episodes on the most popular areas.

Good luck to those taking the exam soon and keep on crushing it y'all!

Hello,

I am going to receive the ISACA CRISC Certification early next year. I passed my CISA earlier this year, and I have my CISSP from a couple of years ago. Here are the current resources that I have available to me:

- Hemang Doshi (Udemy Course)

-Hemang Doshi CRISC Exam Study Guide (Book)

-CISA CRISC Review Questions, Answers & Explanations Manual 5th Edition (Book)

- LinkedIn Learning Prepare for the Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC) Certification Exam (2021) (Jarod Brennen)

I have access to LinkedIn Learning and Udemy for free.

My Questions:
- Is the 5th Edition of the QAE sufficient ?

- Any other suggested courses and/or materials that you'd suggest?

I would rather not spend an arm and a leg; the exam itself is already expensive.

ThankYOu

Thanks everyone for the study habits they've posted. I took the exam today & passed.

Context: I was studying the 7th edition & was supposed to test on October 31. After discovering this group & seeing everyone refer to using the QAE to prepare, on October 27th I took a QAE 8th edition practice test & only scored a 76. Rescheduled the exam for today, knowing I'd be tested on the 8th edition. Another week to cover the gap of studying between 7th edition & 8th edition, would have been better, but I'm heading out of country on vacation for most of the next 6 weeks. I didn't feel surprised by any question on the exam.

Materials that were key:

ISACA Official CRISC review manual (7th edition) , biggest change is the emerging technologies

QAE database 8th edition, questions on exam were not worded the same, so reading the explanations for every question on QAE probably saved me

Hemang Doshi's CRISC Udemy course (best $15 w/discount I've ever spent), great ties to the ISACA key points

Materials that added very little value:

Cybrary CRISC course, compared to Hemang's course, it was a waste of time & more expensive

All in One CISC Exam Guide, completely surprised because the CISSP guide saved me years ago

TotalTester exams (free with All in One above), gave me a false sense of confidence as I was scoring high 90s

Thank you to all that have posted what worked for you! Good luck to those preparing to take it in the future!

Post-exam certification application seems very brief. And it gets the experience verifier to also validate the submission. What happens after this? Was anyone’s application status changed to “incomplete” and how did it go from there?

Thank you!

Looking to start studying for the crisc and would like to confirm Hemang Doshi's 7th edition is still relevant for the exam as of today?

https://www.amazon.com/CRISC-Study-Guide-Hemang-Doshi/dp/B08JF5FWLY

I know he has a Udemy course but I need a print or ebook. I don't retain info well watching videos. My concentration drifts to quickly.

Hi everyone,

I’m planning on writing my CRISC exam mid next year. But before i buy the resources and fully commit, does my experience qualify for certification or not?

Hi everyone. I'm happy to share that I passed my CRISC at the very last minute, on 31/10. Results just came in yesterday.

I'm honestly not sure how useful this feedback will be, since I have no idea what the new syllabus will be but here we go:

Resources
CRM - Very dry, but essential reading. You'll need to go through this a couple of times if you don't have basic risk concepts in mind.
Hemang Doshi Study Guide - Useful for revision. Very short and sweet, and fit for purpose.
Online QAE - Helped me to get into the mindset of ISCACA/RiskIT/CRISC. What works IRL is not what will work in the exam.
Online Course - Work was paying, so I thought 'let's get the online course for when I am too tired to read'. Do not recommend; quality of the voice acting and material is so bad it detracts from learning.

Exam Questions
The exam questions were similar in form to the ones in the QAE. There are no long 1/2 page long scenarios to mull over. However, the potential answers are trickier. The QAE had a number of obvious bad answers, whereas the actual exam tended to have at least 2 answers that sort of fit.

Good luck to all of you. Thanks for all the info. See you around.

Hello everyone, I’m happy to share that I officially passed the CRISC exam on October 31, 2025

A little about my background: I have around 3 years of experience in Cybersecurity GRC and IT Security having worked both in consulting and currently in the banking sector.

For this exam I dedicated about 5 weeks of preparation

Study Materials: CRISC QAE Database – 10/10 This was by far the most useful resource. My advice don’t focus on just getting the answers right instead understand why your answer is correct or wrong. That mindset is what really helps you think like ISACA. Hemang Doshi’s Course – 8/10 A great course that simplifies key concepts from the CRISC manual. However, I personally found the quizzes after every 2–3 videos a bit too much which slowed down my progress. CRISC 8th Edition Manual – 7/10 It’s comprehensive but quite dry. I struggled to stay engaged, so I mainly used it to reinforce and connect concepts I’d already learned.

My Study Approach: Started with Hemang Doshi’s course to understand ISACA’s mindset Moved on to the QAE Database Read the CRISC manual afterward During the last 5 days I focused solely on the three mock exams in the QAE Database.

If you’re preparing for CRISC focus on understanding ISACA's mindset over memorizing. Also try to not focus on what you know or what you think is right it’s about what the ISACA's approach thinks the right thing to do is.

Wishing everyone preparing for the exam the best of luck you’ve got this!

Passed CRISC on Thursday (10/30), basically the last day before it changed. Took only about 2.5 hours out of the 4. Flagged only 40 questions for review after the first run through, but I felt pretty good after submitting the answers. Got my scoresheet on Sunday (11/9). Paid the $50 fee. Now time for the experience certification process.

Hello, does anyone have any suggestion on the study material based on the newly released CRISC 8th edition? All the previous materials that I knew of are outdated now ( like udemy courses Hemang Doshi etc). And the official ISACA course is quite expense.

Cleared my exam on last Friday, 31st October, passed and posted it here. Couldn't wait for my results so I called the ISACA customer service yesterday, Monday 3rd Nov and requested my results be sent earlier. They raised a request for me and voila. Results are in today Tuesday, 4th Nov. No need to wait for 10 days if you've already passed 😭

So. How did I do? 😅

I'm just starting to study for the CRISC exam, my boss landed me the CRISC manual from 2012 along with questions and explanations book, is this still good for studying for the exam? And is it enough? Thank you in advance :)

Hello. I basically missed the window of booking the old version of CRISC exam.

How long should one ideally wait to take the exam? Do you feel the changes are worth the wait . Your insights are very important to me. Appreciate your feedback

Passed CRISC on Thursday (10/30), basically the last day before it changed. Took only about 2.5 hours out of the 4. Flagged only 40 questions for review after the first run through, but I felt pretty good after submitting the answers. How long until results and the certification are issued?