Dear community,
I joined this forum a couple of weeks ago, while I was preparing for my CCSP exam - which I had today and passed 🙂 I would like to sum up my personal recommendations for having good chances of passing the exam. Please do not take these notes as a general "recipe", it's just how it worked out for me.
Reading this post very thoroughly detailed by Radioteacher (who also recently passed the CCSP exam) - btw, congratulations from my side also! - I got a bit scared that maybe I am not doing enough for my preparation. The thing is: it very much depends on your previous experience and if you already have other credentials, like CISSP (or aquivalent). And more training is never bad, it's just a matter of perspective. In the end, what matters is if you go with a "clean mind" to the exam, meaning you feel you have done enough to prepare.
Long story short: I used the following materials to LEARN:
- (2nd Edition)
- (1st Edition)
And to PRACTICE I used:
- the review questions at the end of each chapter in the CBK and Official Study Guide
- the online practice exams provided by Sybex to those who buy the Official Study Guide
I did not participate in any classroom training and did not use any other resources for learning or practicing. But I must mention that I earned my CISSP credential last year in december, which helped a lot during learning and in the end at the exam. And I have approximately 6 years of experience in the IT Security field.
My recommendation: do NOT rely solely on the Official Study Guide, it simply does not cover all topics as thoroughly as the CBK does. Read the CBK at least 2 times to make sure you did not miss any important concepts.
Both books are, in my opinion, well written (like a story), with enough examples from the real world, so I would definitely recommend them both.
How much time I invested? Hard to say (I lost track...), but I started at the beginning of September 2017 and learned every week approximately 6-8 hours, starting with November a lot more (maybe 20 hours a week?) + a bit more in the last week prior to the exam. So I would assume I spent somewhere around 150 hours of study to pass the CCSP exam.
Is the exam time of 4 hours enough? Yes, in my opinion it is more than enough to cover the exam, 1-2 short breaks and a bit of buffer in the end.
I hope this information helps you in getting prepared for your CCSP exam. Wish you all the luck! Let me know if you have questions which you think I might be able to answer (except of those related to the real exam questions, which I will not disclose...).
Cheers,
-darie17
