From CISSP to CCSP - Another Milestone Achieved!

[akkem]

Happy to share that today I’ve passed the CCSP exam!

My preparation was focused solely on the Sybex CCSP book and its practice tests. Due to a packed schedule, I didn’t have the chance to explore other resources. I had booked the exam quite a while ago and felt a bit nervous going in, as I didn’t prepare as thoroughly as I usually do.

That said, my 10+ years of hands-on experience in cloud security definitely helped me navigate the questions. With this milestone, I now hold both CISSP and CCSP certifications, and I’m setting my sights on the ISSAP next.

To anyone preparing: practical experience combined with focused study can go a long way. 

[Brackia_Jackson]

I used https://goo.su/ZV7j3ys for my exam preparation, which made all the difference. The questions were well structured and aligned perfectly with the actual exam. I passed!

[mrashid]

Congratulations @akkem, that's a great achievement! 

I also recently sat the test and didn’t mange to pass unfortunately 😕.
One thing I felt that contributed to this is not having done enough practice as the questions do appear somewhat tricky with very close answers. I also studied Sybex material you referenced and the ‘Official Practice Test- 3rd edition’ but found that it wasn't adequate! So I was looking for more practice materials and bumped into ISC2’s ‘Self Paced Adaptive Learning’ packages for $440. But having already spent quite a bit on the "exam peace of mind", it doesn’t feel like an attractive option to spend big sum! Any suggestions?

[nkeaton]

@mrashid We all learn differently. Oddly I did less practice questions for the CCSP than other exams. Do you feel like it was cybersecurity or cloud concepts and security that was tougher on the exam for you? If cybersecurity, I would read the Sybex CISSP study guide. I would at least review those topics that are in the CCSP exam outline. If cloud, I would recommend no cost materials from CSA (Cloud Security Alluance) and NIST’s SP 800-125 for a refresher on virtualization. Also it was not available when I took the exam, but I have been getting our folks Gwen Bettwy’s book. They really like it because is concise and to the point. That was definitely the hardest practice exam that you will ever attempt. Best wishes on the next one.

[mrashid]

thanks @nkeaton, really appreciate your input.

From the results feedback, the areas I seem to need to improve most are 'Legal Risk & Compliance' and 'Cloud Concepts Architecture & Design'. Being an individual with short attention span, I think I prefer the Q&A style material as they can keep me engaged better than plain old written or long dry video materials. Besides, I find that some learnings are only possible in those MCQ style practice tests, like analysing between very close options in a slightly twisted or trick question. I'm looking for these in Udemy at the moment and found one titled 'TOTAL: CCSP 2022 (Cloud Security) Practice Tests', although I'm not convinced the difficulty level or style of the questions resemble the real tests- so my hunt still continues 🙂. I'll update back here when I find something useful that worked for me. Many thanks.