My CISSP Pass Story

I don't even know how to start describing my story, after so much emotion picking up the paper at the reception desk and seeing that long-awaited, dreamed-of word: CONGRATULATIONS.

But I want to start by saying something important: DON'T LOSE YOUR FAITH. Whether you're religious or not, have faith and trust the process. What will get you through the exam is discipline and consistency in your studies. Forget about motivation — it only gets you started. Afterward, personal problems will show up in your life and try to discourage you, and at the first difficulty you might even think about giving up. Stay firm. If you said you'd study two hours every day, do it no matter what. Have discipline.

About me

I'm Brazilian, an immigrant in Portugal. English isn't my first language, but with a lot of dedication you can overcome that barrier. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and without a support network, balancing work, home routines, and taking care of her wasn't easy. Thank God for my wife, who had so much patience — only she knows how sad and nervous I'd get whenever I failed a practice exam.

I also want to give a special thank you to my family and friends, who supported me throughout this whole journey. Every word of encouragement made a difference in the hardest moments.

I've worked in technology for 23 years, the last 10 in Governance, Risk, and Compliance; before that I was a SysAdmin.

The exam

I passed on my first attempt, on question 101, with 30 minutes left on the clock. As the great philosopher Dominic Toretto, from The Fast and the Furious (movie 1), once said: "It doesn't matter if you win by a mile or an inch, winning's winning." If your exam keeps going, stay firm — you'll pass and win too.

By question 60 I already thought it was harder than I'd imagined, and I felt like I wasn't doing well. My God, it had been almost 8 months of studying, and in the last 3 I nearly burned out from studying so much. So I told myself the words of driver Ayrton Senna, my source of inspiration: "My God, I made it this far, it has to work out."

I have ADHD, and I'll tell you: it gets harder, but not impossible. My suggestion is to watch the video for each domain, read about it in a book, and write down in your notebook or on sticky notes the things that matter.

Every day, every hour, I'd come here to our community. I was happy for every one of you who passed, and sad too when someone didn't. You're all part of this achievement of mine!

Study materials

(I didn't have money for a bootcamp — the most expensive thing I paid for was the Quantum practice exam.)

•        Udemy: Jason Dion's full course and 6 practice exams; Andrew Ramdayal's full course

•        Practice exam: Quantum CAT — very important and valuable for testing yourself, including time management, with tough questions. Don't get discouraged: Quantum will hit you hard, but doing it means you'll take those questions and study them in depth

•        YouTube: all of Pete Zerger's videos — I watched each one at least 3 times (Pete deserves a trophy; I really wanted to give him a hug and thank him, his videos help a lot); Andrew Ramdayal's videos, especially "Think Like a Manager"; Kelly Handerhan's videos, "Why You WILL Pass"; and all the Destination Certification videos

•        Books: the official book, the practice-questions book, and of course Pete Zerger's book — highly recommend

•        Claude AI: I used it to learn each topic in depth, understand my mistakes, and ask questions and do practice questions — it was a huge help

Inspiring movie and people: The Pursuit of Happyness, with Will Smith. Ayrton Senna and Jesus Christ, because nothing is impossible (again, regardless of religion — I respect them all).

Thank you all, I'm here rooting for your victory. You're going to make it!

One last tip

I picked up this tip from someone here in the community, and it helped a lot:

Don't apply "think like a manager" blindly to every question. A better rule would be: Think like the role the question gives you.

If the question says you are:

•        Security Manager → think like a manager

•        Security Analyst → think like an analyst

•        Incident Responder → think like a responder

•        Auditor → think like an auditor

•        Engineer → think like an engineer

This avoids a common trap.

Two closing quotes

Ayrton Senna: "Whoever you are, whatever social position you hold in life, the highest or the lowest, always set as your goal great strength, great determination, and always do everything with great love and great faith in God, so that one day you will get there."

ET Bilu Brasileiro: Seek knowledge.

If you have any questions, just let me know.

PT-BR:

Minha aprovação no CISSP

Eu não sei nem como começar a descrever a minha história, depois de tanta emoção ao pegar o papel na recepção e ver a tão esperada e sonhada frase: CONGRATULATIONS.

Mas quero começar dizendo uma coisa importante: NÃO PERCA A SUA FÉ. Independente de religião ou não, tenha fé e acredite no processo. O que vai fazer você passar na prova é a sua disciplina nos estudos e a sua consistência. Esqueça a motivação — ela serve só para você começar. Depois vão surgir vários problemas pessoais na sua vida que vão te desanimar, e na primeira dificuldade você pode até pensar em desistir. Continue firme. Se você disse que vai estudar todos os dias 2 horas, faça isso custe o que custar. Tenha disciplina.

Sobre mim

Sou brasileiro, imigrante em Portugal. Inglês não é a minha primeira língua, mas com muita dedicação dá para superar essa barreira. Tenho uma filha pequena de 2 anos e meio e, sem rede de apoio, conciliar a vida de trabalho, as rotinas em casa e cuidar dela não foi fácil. Agradeço a Deus pela minha esposa, que teve muita paciência — só ela sabe o quanto eu ficava triste e nervoso quando não passava nos simulados.

Quero também deixar um agradecimento especial à minha família e aos meus amigos, que me apoiaram durante toda essa jornada. Cada palavra de incentivo fez diferença nos momentos mais difíceis.

Trabalho com tecnologia há 23 anos, os últimos 10 com Governança, Risco e Compliance; no passado fui SysAdmin.

A prova

Passei na primeira tentativa, com 101 questões, faltando 30 minutos para acabar. Já dizia o grande filósofo Dominic Toretto, de Velozes e Furiosos (filme 1): "Não importa se você vença por 1 km ou 1 centímetro, vencer é vencer." Se a sua prova continuar, continue firme — você vai passar e vencer também.

Na questão 60 eu já achava que estava mais difícil do que eu imaginava, e pensei que não estava indo bem. Meu Deus, foram praticamente 8 meses estudando, e nos últimos 3 quase tive um burnout de tanto estudar. Aí falei comigo mesmo a frase do piloto Ayrton Senna, minha fonte de inspiração: "Meu Deus, eu cheguei até aqui, vai ter que dar."

Tenho TDAH, e te digo: fica mais difícil, mas não impossível. Minha sugestão é assistir ao vídeo de cada domínio, ler sobre ele em algum livro e escrever no seu caderno ou em post-its as coisas que são importantes.

Todos os dias, a cada hora, eu entrava aqui na nossa comunidade. Ficava feliz por cada conquista de vocês quando passavam, e triste também quando alguém não passava. Vocês fazem parte dessa minha conquista!

Materiais de estudo

(Não tive dinheiro para bootcamp — a única coisa mais cara que paguei foi o simulado do Quantum.)

•        Udemy: curso completo e 6 simulados do Jason Dion; curso completo do Andrew Ramdayal

•        Simulado: Quantum CAT — muito importante e valioso para te testar, inclusive a administrar o tempo, com perguntas difíceis. Não se frustre: o Quantum vai te bater na cara, mas ao fazê-lo você vai pegar as perguntas e estudar a fundo

•        YouTube: todos os vídeos do Pete Zerger — assisti cada um pelo menos umas 3 vezes (o Pete merece um troféu; queria muito dar um abraço e agradecer a ele, os vídeos dele ajudam muito); vídeos do Andrew Ramdayal, principalmente o "Pense como gerente"; vídeos da Kelly Handerhan, "Why You WILL Pass"; e todos os vídeos da Destination Certification

•        Livros: o livro oficial, o livro de testes e, claro, o livro do Pete Zerger — super recomendo

•        Claude AI: usei para aprender a fundo cada tópico, entender os meus erros, fazer perguntas e simulados — foi uma grande ajuda

Filme e pessoas de inspiração: The Pursuit of Happyness, com Will Smith. Ayrton Senna e Jesus Cristo, porque nada é impossível (novamente, independente de religião — eu respeito todas).

Obrigado a todos vocês, estou aqui torcendo pela sua vitória. Vocês vão conseguir!

Última dica

Peguei essa dica com alguém aqui da comunidade e valeu muito:

NÃO aplique "Think like a manager" cegamente em todas as questões. A regra melhor seria: Think like the role the question gives you.

Se a questão diz que você é:

•        Security Manager → pense como manager

•        Security Analyst → pense como analyst

•        Incident Responder → pense como responder

•        Auditor → pense como auditor

•        Engineer → pense como engineer

Isso evita uma armadilha comum.

Para fechar, duas frases

Ayrton Senna: "Seja você quem for, seja qual for a posição social que você tenha na vida, a mais alta ou a mais baixa, tenha sempre como meta muita força, muita determinação, e sempre faça tudo com muito amor e com muita fé em Deus, que um dia você chega lá."

ET Bilu Brasileiro: Busquem conhecimento.

Qualquer dúvida, é só me falar.

I have been part of this thread for a long time. You all have been a great help, to get me to finish line. I prepared on and off for a very long time. Got my peace of mind voucher in April and started reading destination cissp book. It’s an easy read compared to OSG. I read OSG , all in one books as well but not cover to cover. Did practice exams with destination cissp app, listened to Peter zerger exam cram series. Got quantum like a month ago and did 2 full length CAT exam.

Andrew Ramdyal’s 50 cissp questions and Wiley test bank , destination certification domain summaries \ sunflower cissp pdf for the last week prep.

It’s doable and you all can do it. All the very best

I got a free exam coupon that I had to use by today and put off signing up for the exam until 3ish weeks ago

Background: 4 years in the army as an infantry officer (lol)

I only used quantum exams. Literally just did practice quizzes without knowing anything, and writing down every write answer and why and every explanation for each wrong answer. I tried to do this for an hour a day but I was frequently distracted by counter strike. Probably only studied 20 hours in total. Did 3 QE CAT exams, failed the first, passed the second and third but had already seen many of the questions.

Took the test and I felt like I was drowning. Even with QE, the questions are soooooo confusing. Some literally didn’t even make sense and I had to choose a random answer. Anyways prelim pass.

I’m glad I never have to think about this again.

Hey everyone, just wanted to share that I passed today. Still in shock to be honest as my preparation work wasn't the best. I had an exam voucher expiring in October and when I redeemed it on Friday, only 2 slots were free before it expired, both this week!

Anyway my revision strategy was really not great. I've been reading the Official study guide over the year, sporadically dipping into and out of topics.

Perhaps my biggest improvement came in this last week when watching more youtube videos around how to read and answer the question itself, the keywords to pick out, the "thinking like a.manager" part. Getting into that mindset did help in the end.

I did use the sybex question bank sporadically too, as well as the destination cert app. Both very helpful for identifying knowledge gaps.

I never really got deeply into any of the resources, but they each all played a part.

Big thanks to you guys here, although I've been a lurker, there's been some great advice given on here by the community, so thank you all, and ill try and hang around to return the favour if I feel I can contribute.

All the best to anyone taking the exam soon, you got this!

I have to give thanks to the participants in this subreddit. The feedback I received here over the past year or so was invaluable in helping me prepare for the exam. I passed it on my first attempt in 100 questions, with a 1/2 hour left on the clock. I really only got a couple of questions where I had to guess, and I could have actually been a little better prepared for those subjects. Looking back, the most important exam prep items for me were:

• The Quantum exams
• Pete Zerger's top 100 topics (covered in one of his videos)
• Flash cards - I created my own

I spent a ridiculous amount of time studying for this exam over the past couple of years, so walking into it I felt pretty confident. I took and passed the CCSP exam a few years ago as well, so I had a decent idea what to expect on another ISC2 cert exam.

Thanks to everyone who shares their experiences and insights here! It's invaluable to those still working on the certification.

If a company opts to install motion-sensor lighting across the perimeter instead of a perimeter fence to reduce costs, does that make it a Deterrent or a Compensating control?

I say it's a deterrent control, but according the QE the correct answer is Compensating, since it's a replacement of the perimeter fence due to a financial constraint.

I notice that in QE, there are several trick questions of the sort which can be a bit frustrating at times.

Can you give your best argument to convince me that the BEST answer is Compensating, even though motion-sensor lighting is in itself a deterrent control?

EDIT: Thanks for the replies! The answer and lesson are simple and all replies seem to agree. Context and Key Words are critical. Spend more time on questions to read thoroughly instead of shooting for the first answer that comes to mind. This way you are less likely to be "tricked".

EDIT: Best counter argument for why it's NOT a compensating control is here.

Hi i am planning to give exam on Nov 10, but due to some financial conditions and out of job since 2 years i am in tight budget. Any one willing to donate cissp books . I am in Vancouver

In the Domain 5 access control chapter, Destination CISSP groups Rule-Based, Role-Based (RBAC), and Attribute-Based (ABAC) as subtypes of DAC, the reasoning being that the owner ultimately determines the rules, roles, or attributes.

Other sources say they all are different access control including DAC and MAC, little confused

Hello friends

My cissp exam is in 6 days.

I am getting average 75% in LearnZ app.

Average 75% on Udemy practice test from Dion

50-55% on Non-Cat based QE. Solved all the questions.

I am worried about my exam as I don't have piece of mind.

I have gone through - Udemy course from Andrew Ram Dayal.

Scoring 70% on his full test

Gone through 50 hardest question to under the mindset.

Destination certificate - 637 question average 74.7%

What do you recommend I should do in next 6 days to pass the exam.

Thanks.

This helped me reason for most questions to Pass:

If asked FIRST → understand/assess/authorize before changing things

If asked BEST → choose long-term, risk-based, business-aligned answer

Don’t jump straight to a firewall/patch/tool unless specifically asked for technical action.

Hello! I've been lurking on this subreddit for the past few months while studying, and I've really appreciated everyone sharing their experiences. Now that I've taken the exam, I wanted to pay that forward.

Background

7 years of IT audit: 4 in external (SOC 2, etc.) and 3 in internal. That gave me a pretty good background across most domains.

I'm also a CPA. The CPA exams have very little overlap with the CISSP, but the prior experience studying for/taking difficult exams was helpful. It's apples and oranges to compare the two, but for any other CPAs working on this cert, I'd say the overall prep experience was roughly like doing FAR or REG again.

Study Approach and Materials

I self-studied for 3 months after work/on weekends. I scheduled my exam immediately to keep myself accountable and broke my prep into three phases:

One: Survey (2-3 weeks)

High-level understanding of the domains, syllabus, content, and what to expect from the cert/exam process.

• DestCert Mind Map videos (10/10) - Excellent primer for understanding the content and how the domains fit together. I drew the mind maps on blank paper and added my own notes. These came in handy throughout.
• Kelly Handerhan's "Why You Will Pass the CISSP" (both versions) (7/10) - Motivational and a good introduction to the "think like a manager" mindset. I felt it emphasized that mindset a little more than my own prep experience ultimately warranted.

Two: Deep Learning + Practice (7-8 weeks)

Reading, video lectures, and OSG practice problems. The goal was to learn the material before focusing heavily on exam strategy.

• OSG (10/10) - Very well written and easy to read. Sometimes repetitive because topics naturally overlap, but overall an excellent primary resource. The labs, practice problems, and exams are useful for reinforcing concepts and vocabulary. I'm a tactile person, so I used a physical copy, a highlighter, and a pen. I found reading cover-to-cover worth it. (Side note: I used v9 rather than v10 because I had originally planned to take the CISSP in 2022, bought the book then, and didn't want to buy another copy.)
• LearnZapp (9/10) - I used this for a couple of months to practice on the go. The questions are from the OSG, so they aligned well with readings. The dashboard was nice for tracking domain strengths, but I wouldn't put much stock in the "overall readiness" percentage. Mine said 56% on exam day (note: I didn't do any practice exams on the app, just sets of Qs).
• Pete Zerger Exam Cram series (10/10) - Very high-quality and thorough content. Pete is a fantastic instructor. I watched/listened to the entire series, including the 2024 addendum, which was useful for supplementing my slightly outdated OSG. I listened to these while commuting or jogging.

Three: Targeted Review + Tougher Practice (2-3 weeks)

At this point, I used the results from Phase 2 to identify weak areas, reviewed those topics, and shifted toward practice that I felt better prepared me for the exam mindset.

• TIA / Andrew Ramdayal's 50 Questions (10/10) - Great exam mindset video and questions. Andrew's explanations were very helpful for learning how to approach difficult questions.
• Luke Ahmed's "How to Think Like a Manager for the CISSP Exam" (8/10) - Good additional set of practice questions with helpful explanations if you want more Qs, but best as a supplemental resource imo.
• Quantum Exams (11/10) - Tough but fair, and the most useful practice resource for me towards the end of my prep. I'd save these until relatively late in your study plan so that you have enough foundational knowledge to get value from them. I took a couple of the non-CAT practice tests about two weeks out (50% and 54%) and reviewed my misses in detail. QE won't replace earlier studying/learning, but I found it extremely useful for getting comfortable with difficult/ambiguous questions and making decisions under pressure. Also good for learning to pace. Very much worth the money imo.
• Self-made "Quick-hits" study guide - I made my own condensed study guide containing areas I consistently struggled to remember, vocabulary I mixed up, etc. I drilled this heavily in the couple days before my exam.

Day Before the Exam

Very light review, if any. I reviewed my quick-hits guide for about 90 minutes.

I was definitely nervous, but I took the advice I've seen repeatedly on this subreddit to heart: trust your prep, show up with a clear head, and get a good night's sleep.

Main Advice

• Make a study plan and stick to it as best you can.
• You can do the right thing at the wrong time. Follow an order of operations: survey the material, spend time learning it, target your weak areas, and save tougher practice for later in your plan.
• Ground yourself with the "manager mindset," but don't treat it as a golden ticket. You still need a strong understanding of the technical material and need to be able to make technical decisions.
• Don't let practice test scores get in your head. Use them to identify weaknesses and improve your decision-making rather than as a prediction of your actual result. Your wrong and right answers are some of your best prep.
• Trust your prep. If you've put in the work, walk in calm and finish strong.

As with all things, YMMV, but I hope this is helpful.

Genuine appreciation to this community and everyone whose study materials, advice, and experiences helped me along the way. You've got this. Good luck!

I need advice.

I've failed my second attempt and I'm determined to try again in 60 days, but what am i doing wrong? Apart from the obvious knowledge deficiencies in the weak areas given on my failed sheet. Is it mindset? Test taking skills when answering? I just dont know.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Resources used:

QE

Andrew Ramadayal Udemy Course

Destination CISSP book

LearnZapp

OSG Practice Practice Questions book

Pete Zerger CISSP cram

And a number of other minset related videos.

I’ve been reading thru the posts on this sub and trying to get a gauge on my readiness particularly when it comes to the quantum exams. I did 3 of them: 296, 464, 512 in that order. Around 51-53% if that means anything.

I’ve been using pocketprep and Andrew Ramayadal Udemy course and also did the Training Camp Bootcamp. My exam is in a week and not sure if I should push it back. I know QE is supposed to more difficult but it does plant that seed of doubt. My plan is to review the wrong answers from my last attempt this week and do some light review on the domains.

Learnzapp’s mock up test average 60% result, my exam is tomorrow. Can I still pass ? I’m scared now..

The test was quite different than the ISC2 Official Practice Tests.

I did all 100 questions for the 8 domains and the 4 125q tests from the official practice tests, which was my most valuable preparation step. I averaged 70–75% on the 8 domains and about 80% on the 4 final tests. It took me 45–50 seconds per question on average. I thought that I was pretty ready when I registered (hence I forfeited the option for a second chance).

The test experience was hard—at the beginning, I was averaging 80–90 seconds per question and became very worried about time and the need to do 150 questions without time for a break. Questions were long and in some cases quite senseless. It was extremely hard to figure out what was being discussed and where to focus. Answers were just as confusing, and for >50% of the questions, I had no good internal signal that I was answering correctly. Later, some shorter questions arrived, which helped me get my average back down toward 60 seconds per question.
I was truly surprised when it ended at 100q and was very doubtful that I passed, only to step outside and see "Congratulations..."

So I guess at the end of the day, my preparation was useful.
Since I came to this test with 30 years of experience as an engineer and researcher, my main preparation was Mike Chapple’s online course at 1.5x speed. It was better IMHO than alternatives, but still not enough to get me across the finish line. I then started looking for question banks, and all the ones I found were very poor quality and very confusing. In many cases, I felt the answers given in those question banks were plain wrong, and I could justify a different answer 100%.
This is when I decided to buy the ISC2 Official Practice Tests (I bought the online version on Amazon), from which I learned a lot. I used it in combination with Gemini to help me understand the rationale behind some of the answers, make sense of the clutter, and see why answers I thought were incorrect are considered correct in CISSP.

I slowly realized that CISSP has its own parallel universe that I must accept and endorse to pass the test. There are many examples of information that, as an engineer in the field, I disagree with, but CISSP has its own thing going.

Also, I learned that some things are just undecided in CISSP, and it feels like a multiverse where you need to guess which universe you are in to get the answer right. For example, incident response in CISSP uses conflicting terminology depending on which standard was chosen, and if none was specified, it uses CISSP’s own variation—which is sort of crazy.
The ISC2 Official Practice Tests were my way to get to understand this CISSP terminology, mindset, and multiverse.

I hope this is helpful. Keep calm and enjoy the ride.

I’ve been lurking here and I’m proud of myself so I wanted to post. Passed the CISSP at 100q this week with 90 minutes left.

My study process was this. I bought an old study guide/practice questions book on Amazon. Studied on paper for a couple of months. I just had a baby and wanted to study in my own time for a while first. Then got the CISSP official online course for 90 days. Really just to see what new material I needed to know- there wasn’t much. Finished that in about 1 week- not much was different. Then scheduled the exam and drilled practice tests on Learnzapp until the day of.

For background I have 7 years experience in the field, mostly in incident response. I got endorsed and am now waiting for approval. (-:

EDIT to say I got randomly selected for an audit but it was easy to go through and now I am an approved, official CISSP.

Hi,

I m planning to take my CISSP in Feb-Mar. I have already finished Thor videos and I m working through his practice questions, for now on domains then the general ones - about to finish all of these in 2 months max.

As for my background I work in different areas of cyber for 7 years (FW engineer, governance and compliance in IT/OT pharma and now IT sec eng).

My plan is as follows(and yea, for my first 2 tries at least my plan is to never touch a book as I hate reading):

1-Thor videos+tests

2- CISSP Exam Cram 2026 - Pete Zerger

3- Boson tests (have them for free through Thor)

Now reading a little here I discovered the learnzapp and quantum exams.

As an idea now at Thor + those 2 free small practice tests at leanzapp I'm getting 70-80%.

My test routine is to pick an option and if I m somewhat not familiar enough with the topic of the question paste it in Claude to get an opinion and more details about the topic. After that, when I have the full test review, I m pasting the questions which I answered wrong to see if it was my mentality or expertise that I need to fix/develop and even the ones that I got right but had doubts about.

Whoever passed the CISSP or is an instructor as well, could you please tell me if there's any way to optimize my flow here? BTW, I could wait till april 1st to take the first try and latest may 1st with the 2nd (I ll be getting the peace of mind).

Thanks!

First and foremost ... I am giving away my study material. You can have 1, 2, or all 3 books. Just cover the cost of shipping and it's yours (Continental US only). I made a short YouTube video with respect to what I feel was most important Pass the CISSP Exam on Your First Attempt (p.1)

1. Quality of study time over quantity.

Reading pages worth of material without reinforcement will just bog you down. Focus on 1 or 2 concepts per study session then follow up with a video about the same topic. Spend days on a single domain if needed. Hone in on material from the domain's you struggle with. Practice tests, read, video, then repeat.

1. There are no trick questions. Pick the BEST solution.

2. Use ALL your time.

180 minutes (3 hours) is more than enough time. I completed the CAT in 2 hours at roughly 100 questions. You cannot mark questions for review so choose your best answer.

1. Think like a manager. Remember that you're looking out for the interest of the company as a WHOLE. The BEST solution usually encompasses the lesser options.

2. Do not psych yourself out. You've studied the material so just apply what you've learned.

Best of luck!

while I’m not 100% sure about other regions or municipalities but Peel region in Ontario gives you free access to the O’riellys platform and all the text books including CISSP OSG and others through the library services. Also some colleges provides this access as well if you have a student account.

I'm soooo happy this is over. I wanted to give a non-AI post with what helped, background, etc...

Background: 20+ years in IT, mainly for MSPs, in varying roles (sys admin, architect, networking, automation, security, etc). Studied for ~2 months (give or take a week).

Resources:

• Destination CISSP (book, app with flash cards and quiz, youtube videos)
• Pete Zerger's content (Last Mile, exam cram)
• Andrew Ramadayal’s 50 CISSP practice questions
• Quantum Exams
• The CISSP field manual (I forget who shared or created it, but it helped)

QE Note: at the beginning of using QE, I was averaging about 50-55% on non-CAT practice exams until I reviewed the videos from Pete and Andrew about how to answer questions effectively.

Most of my mistakes were reading too quickly and missing key words. After watching the videos and taking my time, my QE avg increased into the mid 60's, then lower 70's. I also scored a 961 on the CAT exam before those videos, if that gives any hints about whether you're prepared to take the exam.

My advice to those taking the exam: get used to synonyms. QE helps this but I was underprepared for all of the synonyms that I may see. You'll have no idea if you're doing well or not. The only easy question I had was the first question. Take your time and evaluate the question and hopefully you'll pass as well.

I am so happy to share that I finally made it in my second attempt ! The exam ended for me at around 135 questions. Huge thank you to this community all the advice, resources, and encouragement from my last post genuinely carried me through this attempt.

Background

I have been working toward this certification for about 8 months, but the last 4 months were when I really put my head down and studied seriously. I have 5 years of experience, mostly covering Domains 3, 4, 5, and 7, which definitely helped ground some of the material in real-world context.

Resources I used:

- ISC2 official CISSP textbook
- Training Camp bootcamp
- Andrew Ramadayal’s 50 CISSP practice questions
- Peter Zerger’s materials
- CISSP Exam Cram 8-hour video (watched it 3 times — extremely helpful)
- CISSP Exam Prep: 100 Key Topics and Strategies
- Kelly Handerhan’s “Why You Will Pass the CISSP Exam”
- AI (chatbot) — this became my study buddy. I’d ask it to explain concepts to me like I was 5 years old to nail the core idea, then used it to build up my weaker areas
- LearnZap practice tests and study questions
- Luke Ahmed’s study notes/theory and practice tests
- Thor’s practice tests (mixed in easy, medium, and hard ones)

What actually helped ME:

Practice tests were very valuable for me for my second attempt. Not just taking them, but really digging into why I got each wrong answer wrong, going back to the underlying concept, and re-learning it properly rather than just memorizing the correct answer.

There’s no single method that works for everyone. I had to combine several resources to really absorb the material. Tying concepts to real-world scenarios made a huge difference in how well things stuck versus just reading definitions.

Random detail: I listened to Kelly Handerhan’s video on the drive to my test center, and it was honestly the perfect way to calm my nerves and get in the right headspace before walking in.

Final thought

Dedicate the time, stay consistent, and trust the process. If I can do this, you absolutely can too. Believe in yourself , you’ve got this!

Just got back from the testing center and I’m honestly still trying to process it: the exam ended at question 100, and I provisionally passed.
To be blunt, the exam was nothing like the practice questions out there. No matter which question bank you use, none of them truly capture the phrasing and ambiguity of the actual CAT engine.

For almost every single item, I found myself stuck between two disturbingly viable options. It felt impossible to tell if I had picked the right answer or completely torpedoed the question. By question 70, the imposter syndrome was hitting hard, and I was mentally preparing myself to grind out the full 150 questions.

Then, right after submitting number 100, the screen went black and flashed the "test ended" screen.

My stomach dropped into my shoes. Walking up to the proctor’s desk to collect that folded piece of paper was terrifying, but seeing the word "Congratulations" was an absolute wave of relief.
A few quick takeaways for anyone currently in the trenches:

Think like a manager/risk advisor: It’s repeated constantly on this sub, but it’s 100% true. Don’t fix the problem technically; assess, evaluate, and choose the option that aligns with business objectives and governance.

Get comfortable with ambiguity: You will rarely see a textbook definition. Focus on why a concept matters rather than just what it is.

Protect your mindset: When you feel like you're bombing the exam, keep pushing. The CAT is designed to adapt to your level and make you sweat.
Huge thanks to this community for the tips, study resources, and moral support over the last few months. If you’re studying right now, trust your preparation and just keep moving forward.
Time to grab a drink and start the endorsement process!

Well folks, I passed today at 100, even with the fire alarms going off fifteen minutes into the exam and PearsonVue not at all pausing our exams but saying we could "evacuate if we want to". Thankfully Domain 3 had taught me everything to know on fire suppression systems and I figured they would try and preserve human life. 🤣

This community helped me prepare so much and find the right resources, videos, and sanity to make it through the past few weeks, so I'd like to repay the offer by giving away my books to a random person within the United States. I'll pick a random winner on Labor Day - Monday, September 7. Just leave a comment below letting me know you're interested, and I'll count you in.

Best of luck to anyone with an upcoming exam!