What does "Provisionally Passed" mean?

[bananaco]

Today I received my unofficial test result from PearsonVue for my CSSLP and it says, "Congratulations, you provisionally passed the CSSLP examination." It also leads me to believe that ISC2 could come back and say that I in fact didn't pass. What is the deal with this? I don't understand that...I either passed or didn't pass, right? According to the ISC2 site, it says that it depends on the number of test takers at the time? What do my results have anything to do with someone else? Are we grading on a curve or is ISC2 throwing out the lowest (passing) scores among a set number of folks to play with their pass/fail ratios? Seems pretty unethical to me so hopefully that's not what is going on. Anyone have any more info on this?

Thanks,

~Andrew

[denbesten]

"Provisionally Passed" == "Unofficial results".  See this posting.  Official results come out a few days later after they have had the opportunity to review the results for "irregularities" (e.g. cheating) or technical flaws (e.g. the computer ending the test after only 5 questions).

The comment regarding volume of test takers has to do with when new versions of tests are released.  When that happens, there is not enough historical data for the cheating detectors to operate properly.  So, they delay releasing results until historical data has been built up.

[bananaco]

Ok, thanks. So basically given the fact that I didn't cheat and my testing computer worked just fine, I should be OK then?

[denbesten]

Yep.  Everyone gets "provisionally passed".  It does not indicate a problem on your part.  

[bananaco]

Ok, that makes me feel a whole lot better! All the hard work payed off! Thanks again!

[j_M007]

First, congratulations! The hard work paid off, and it continues to pay off.

Second, the question is valid. In a sense, it seems the notion of "provisional" is wired into the certification process. Everything is auditable, and everything needs to be kept up to date with the gaining of continuing education points or CPEs. Read more about it here:

https://www.isc2.org/-/media/ISC2/Certifications/CPE/CPE---Handbook-Digital-V2.ashx

So, something that I intend is to plan out my CPE gathering now. A plethora of activities provide CPEs; however, you need to keep track of them and provide receipts, transcripts, screen shots, etc. if required.

Bravo, welcome to the ever-growing community of dedicated infosec professionals, the learning is ongoing and the challenges have just begun.

Best!

[bananaco]

Thank you very much!

[j_M007]

You're most welcome! Congrats on the success and continued learning.

[StephanB]

Congrats! And to elaborate on volume of test takers, I can say this: when I took my ISSAP in 2014 my letter said that they couldn't tell me whether I passed or failed. I had to wait for a psychometric testing process to complete, and they'd let me know.
I don't remember how much longer it took. But I wasn't happy, as you can imagine.

Edit: I found the emails from isc2 when I asked about this: "Exam results being held for the comprehensive statistical and psychometric analysis usually take up to 4-6 weeks. We will not receive the results until that time as well."

It ended up taking another 4 weeks before I found out I passed the exam.

[nnaik002]

I also provisionally passed today and this thread makes me feel much better.  I had never seen or heard of this before and exactly the same thoughts and questions were going through my mind.