topic Re: 12 month exam limit in Member Support

12 month exam limit

BlueLeader — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 20:33:55 GMT

I'm trying to schedule my CISSP exam but I'm not sure if I'm able to because of the 3 exam within a 12 month time frame limit. Does anyone know if this means 3 exams for a specific certification (for example, 3 attempts at one certification) or if it means 3 exams overall? Thanks in advance!

Re: 12 month exam limit

AlecTrevelyan — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 20:55:20 GMT

Interesting question! The wording in the policy is a little ambiguous in my opinion:

https://www.isc2.org/Register-for-Exam

Under the Results Reporting section it says:

Retake Policy

You can sit for ISC2 exams up to three times within a 12-month period.

For the CISSP-CAT, CISSP, SSCP, CAP, CSSLP, ISSAP, ISSEP and ISSMP:

If you don’t pass the exam the first time, you can retest after 30 days.
If you don’t pass a second time, you can retest after an additional 90 days.
If you don’t pass a third time, you can retest after 180 days from your most recent exam attempt.

For the CCSP and HCISPP:

If you don’t pass the exam the first time, you can retest after 90 days.
If you don’t pass a second time, you can retest after an additional 90 days.
If you don’t pass a third time, you can retest after 180 days from your most recent exam attempt.

As it's stated as the "Retake Policy" that implies it's 3 times per certification, but then the wording "You can sit for ISC2 exams up to three times within a 12-month period" reads to me like it could be just 3 exams per year regardless of the certification!

Have you tried to schedule the exam and it won't let you?

Re: 12 month exam limit

AlecTrevelyan — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 23:42:16 GMT

Thinking about this a little more, there's a member on here who passed 6 different ISC2 exams in 2018, so clearly you can take more than 3 different ones, and the limitation of 3 in a year only applies to attempts of the same exam.

Re: 12 month exam limit

amandavanceISC2 — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 12:27:15 GMT

@BlueLeader Great question! It is by certification. So if you took the CISSP 3 times in 2018, you are not able to sit for a fourth time this calendar year. You will also need to make sure that if you sat for the third time, you wait a total of 180 days, which would leave you in Q2 of 2019.

Best Regards,
Amanda Vance

Re: 12 month exam limit

rbtmi306 — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 00:20:04 GMT

Ooh, this is a very difficult question, it is worth pondering, I think that there are 3 exams in general, but as a last resort, I think you should not relax, although you can when you have