topic Re: Passed CSSLP exam in Exam Preparation

Passed CSSLP exam

chyobo — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 08:56:57 GMT

Hi people,

I passed CSSLP exam, pending endorsement. I'm nertheless surprised that globally there are only 2,452 CSSLPs so far.

I passed CISSP last year but still need 9 more months of experience so I can't get endorsed. Therefore, I decided to try CSSLP. All I can say that it's a long and tough exam and is heavily focused on security issues in software development.

https://www.isc2.org/About/Member-Counts

Best wishes everyone.

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

AlecTrevelyan — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 09:52:18 GMT

Congratulations!

Do you have the experience to certify as a CSSLP?

If you do, then being a CSSLP will also wipe 1 year off the experience requirements for CISSP!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

AppDefects — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 13:03:46 GMT

Welcome to the club!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

nirupam — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 04:19:45 GMT

Happy to share that I passed the exam in the first attempt too. Definitely very exhausting! I was relieved to see that all 175 questions had single option and not the ones requiring multiple selections. Surprised that its only about 2500 of us!!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

Jerry — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:49:46 GMT

I would love to go for that cert, but I cannot get funding for it. No one has ever heard of it here (in this large, multinational corp). I really wish it was a well-known cert.

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

AlecTrevelyan — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 10:01:25 GMT

@nirupam wrote:
Happy to share that I passed the exam in the first attempt too. Definitely very exhausting! I was relieved to see that all 175 questions had single option and not the ones requiring multiple selections. Surprised that its only about 2500 of us!!

Many congratulations @nirupam!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

AlecTrevelyan — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 16:09:15 GMT

I'm pleased to announce I provisionally passed the CSSLP exam earlier today!

After all the negativity in the other CSSLP thread I wasn't sure what I would be walking in to.

I was very pleased to see my standard methodology of reading as many of the suggested references I could had paid off when I went through the first 10 questions and they were all on familiar topics aligned to what I had been studying for the last 10 weeks or so.

At that point I was able to relax and race through the remaining 165 questions in a combined total of just under 2 hours - I know I am used to doing these exams now with this being my 6th one, but this honestly was nowhere near as hard as I was expecting given what I had read on here.

All I will say is don't let that other thread put you off taking this exam. It teaches some incredibly useful and important security fundamentals, and as such is very worthwhile.

Over the past 15 months or so I have studied for and passed the CCSP, ISSEP, ISSAP, ISSMP and CSSLP. Now there are no more ISC2 certifications left for me to earn - well, none that hold any interest for me (CAP, HCISSP, SSCP) - time for a well earned, prolonged rest period!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

Jerry — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 20:07:22 GMT

Congrats everyone!

If these exams and training weren't so expensive, I would have followed in your footsteps.

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

fgarcialainez — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 08:45:05 GMT

Hi,

First of all, congratulations for your achievement!

The thing is that after reading the post that you mention in your post I was a little bit discouraged about taking the exam.

Please, could you tell me if the exam questions are as "tricky" as mentioned in that post? Are short or long questions? Are exam questions similar to the included in the CBK, etc?

May be CSSLP exam has been updated recently, and things are different that in the time of writing that post...

Regards,

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

AlecTrevelyan — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 11:26:11 GMT

This is quite timely as I received my CSSLP certificate package yesterday!

@fgarcialainez wrote:
...
...
The thing is that after reading the post that you mention in your post I was a little bit discouraged about taking the exam.

Please, could you tell me if the exam questions are as "tricky" as mentioned in that post? Are short or long questions? Are exam questions similar to the included in the CBK, etc?
...
...

As I wrote above, don't be put off by that other thread. If you have the requisite knowledge either gained through experience or through appropriate study you can pass this exam.

I found the questions were for the most part well written (i.e. unambiguous) and concise (i.e. short and to the point), and not at all ridiculously verbose like I found for the CCSP, and, yes, some were quite similar to the ones from the CBK.

Good luck with your studies!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

fgarcialainez — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 11:30:51 GMT

Thank you very much for the quick answer! May be the exam has been updated recently, I don't know...

BTW, is it allowed to use English to other language dictionary for non-native English speakers during the exam?

Regards,

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

AlecTrevelyan — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 12:19:33 GMT

@fgarcialainez wrote:
...
...
BTW, is it allowed to use English to other language dictionary for non-native English speakers during the exam?
...
...

I suspect probably not based on this post:

https://community.isc2.org/t5/Certifications/Disadvantage-non-native-speakers/m-p/18028#M3600

Maybe you could contact ISC2 and ask for some accommodations?

https://www.isc2.org/Register-for-Exam#accordion-78a95bb8d8df48bf89fa184980d901fd

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

fgarcialainez — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 15:31:59 GMT

Again, thanks for your quick answer! I will try to ask them directly about English dictionary.

As for the exam scoring, could you tell me how are evaluated each one of the domains? I mean, if you got something like the scoring per domain commented in the following message.

https://community.isc2.org/t5/Member-Support/Not-too-happy-with-CSSLP-Exam/m-p/26634/highlight/true#M5370

Basically, my question is if it is required to get more than 700 in each domain separately, or is enough to get 700 as the total exam scoring.

Regards,

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

AlecTrevelyan — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 16:23:27 GMT

@fgarcialainez wrote:
...
...
As for the exam scoring, could you tell me how are evaluated each one of the domains? I mean, if you got something like the scoring per domain commented in the following message.

https://community.isc2.org/t5/Member-Support/Not-too-happy-with-CSSLP-Exam/m-p/26634/highlight/true#M5370

Basically, my question is if it is required to get more than 700 in each domain separately, or is enough to get 700 as the total exam scoring.
...
...

I'm afraid I don't know the answer for sure.

What I will say is that for the CAT version of the CISSP it is explicitly stated you need to be above proficiency in all domains. While for linear exams like the CSSLP all that is explicitly stated is you need a scaled score of at least 700 out of 1000 (I know it's not fully correct to call this 70% but for the purposes of the rest of this post I will!).

From that I believe you don't need to be above proficiency in all domains.

To use the post you were trying to link as an example of my theory, he was above proficiency in 6 out of 8 domains and below proficiency in the other 2. There are 3 different ratings btw: Above, Near and Below. (So he did quite badly in 2 of the domains.)

Let's say he scored 75% in 6 domains but only 50% in the other 2 that would leave him with an overall score of 69% so would be a fail.

Had he scored 80% in 6 domains and 50% in the other 2 that would leave him with with an overall score of 77% so would have been a pass.

I think the lesson there is if you have weak domains you better be sure you're very strong in the others to compensate.

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

fgarcialainez — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 16:34:34 GMT

Hi,

I think exactly the same than you, but that post makes me doubt about this.

In your case, didn't you get this kind of partial scoring for each domain in the CSSLP scoring report? I know that you passed the exam, but may be you were under the minimum proficiency level in some domain...

Regards,

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

AlecTrevelyan — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 16:42:10 GMT

You only get told your proficiency levels if you fail.

If you pass you just get told congratulations!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

fgarcialainez — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 17:07:27 GMT

Ok :). Again, thank you very much for your quick answers.

Regards,

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

nirupam — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 02:07:43 GMT

kudos alec on this and all the other impressive list of certifications you have!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

msaraswate — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 05:04:50 GMT

Congratulation @chyobo !!

Re: Passed CSSLP exam

sandpa — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:48:53 GMT

I passed the CSSLP earlier today. I don't think you can take anything other than your ID, the key to the locker that holds your personal belongings and a pen/sheet for note-taking. But a dictionary is probably not going to be allowed. You might want to call ahead and specifically ask.

As for scoring, I don't believe CSSLP employs the domain specific scoring. The poster on the other thread misconstrued the proficiency levels sheet he got after failing. It is just to inform you how you are doing in individual domains so you can tailor your prep for your next attempt. He/she probably scored quite low on the domains they were showing "Below" and that contributed to a less than 70% score.